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Supplement to The Architectural Review, January 1903

' INK-PHOTO." K. J. EVERETT & SONS, 56 LUDGATE HILL, E.C.

THE LAST OF NEWGATE.
DRAWN BY MUIRKEAD BONE.

THE

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW

Volume Thirteen
Jan.— June

1 9°3

London

6, Great New Street, Fetter Lane, E.C.

The Architectural Review ” Editorial Committee.

4 4

R. Norman Shaw, R.A.

John Belcher, A.R.A., F.R.I.B.A.
Frank T. Baggallay, F.R.I.B.A.
Reginald Blomfield, M.A.

Gerald C. Horsley.

Mervyn Macartney.

E. J. May.

Walter Millard.

Ernest Newton.

Edward S. Prior, M.A.

Halsey Ricardo.

Professor F. M. Simpson, F.R.I.B.A
Leonard Stokes, F.R.I.B.A.

D. S. MacColl, M.A.

J. H. Elder-Duncan, Secretary.

INDEX TO VOLUME THIRTEEN.

PAGE

Abingdon ... ... ... ... ... ••• Rev. W . J . Loftie ... ... ... i

Illustrations : — Plans. Abbey Buildings, i. Map of Part of Abingdon, showing the Buildings Illustrated, 2. Remains
of the Abbey Buildings, from the North-East, 4. Ground Floor, Abbey Buildings, 5. Interior, Long Abbey
Building, 1st Floor, 6. Thirteenth Century Fireplace in Upper Floor of Abbey Building, 7. Thirteenth
Century Chimney, 8. S. Helen's Wharf, 9. S. Helen’s Church, 10. Christ's Hospital, 11. T witty’s Alms¬
houses, 12 Tomkin's Almshouse, 13. Fountain in Wall of House, Ock Street, 13. The Market House, 15.

Plans of Market House, 16. The Back of the Market House, 17. The Floor of the Market House, 17. The
Town Hall and Municipal Buildings, 18. Window in Hall of Municipal Buildings, 18. Twickenham House, 20.
Doorway of Twickenham House, 21. No. 36, Bath Street, 21. No. 57, East S. Helen Street, 22.

Allhai.lows, Lombard Street ... ... ... Halsey Ricardo ... ... ... 97

Illustrations : — South Side of the Screen, 97. The Principal Entrance, 98. The Tower, 99. South-West Corner of
Vestibule, showing Doorway into Porch, 100. View from North-West Corner of the Vestibule, 101. Vaulting
Over Vestibule, 102. Old Gateway to the Church. Now Preserved in the Porch, 103. The Font, 104.
Interior, Looking East, 105. The Pulpit, 106. The Organ, 107. The Civic Sword and Mace Rests in the
Corporation Pew, 108.

Andrea Palladio ... ... ... ... 1. Reginald Blomfield. 2. Banister F. Fletcher 127, 236

Illustrations : — Frontispiece to Palladio’s Architecture, Frontispiece. La Carita, Venice, from Palladio, Edition 1570, 129.
Illustration from Large Edition of Barbaro’s “Vitruvius,” 131. Temple of Peace (Basilica of Constantine) as
shown by Palladio, Edition 1570, 133. Ditto, as shown by Du Perac, 133. The Pantheon, as shown by
Palladio, 134. Ditto, as shown by Du Perac, 134. House for the Trissini at Meledo, 137. Detail of Palazzo
Valmarana, 138. Villa Almerigo, 139.

Architectural Education (A Review and Discussion):

I. Germany (with Austria and Switzerland)

T . Bailey Saunders

177

II. Great Britain

The Architectural Association Day School ...

The Architectural Association Evening School

Arthur T. Bolton.
William G. B. Lewis.

217

Architecture and the Royal Academy : A Discussion :

IV.

Professor F. M. Simpson ... ... 37

V. Conclusion ...

1. Alexander Graham.

2. D. S. MacColl 47

Architecture at the Royal Academy, 1903. I.

D. S. MacColl

222

Architecture, Current. See Current Architecture.

Arts and Crafts Exhibition, The: A Discussion:

Mervyn Macartney ...

141

II. Conclusion ...

D. S. MacColl

. 187

Atkinson, R. Frank

76, 77

Balfour and Turner

38, 39, 40

Belcher, John, A. R.A.

i54>

159, 160, 161, 162, 163

Bell, E. Ingress ...

230,

231, 232, 233, 234, 235

Blomfield, Reginald

127

Bone, Muirhead

Frontispieces. January, February, and June

Books (Reviewed) :

“ Manuel D’Archeologie Francaise.” Part I. (C. Enlart)

G. H. Palmer

“ The Pavement Masters of Siena.” (R. FI. Hobart Cust)

Gerald C. Horsley...

“ The Dictionary of Architecture.” (Russell Sturgis, Editor) Ernest Newton

. 78

“Fra Angelico.” (R. Langton Douglas) ...

Charles Holroyd

“ Emrlish Woodwork of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth

and Eighteenth Centuries.” (FI. Tanner, Junr.)

Rev. W. J . Loftie ...

164

Brown, Rev. J. Wood

Index

lii

PAGE

Carden, Robert W.
Cheston and Perkin
Collcutt, T. E.
Correspondence :

...41, 42

••• i54. i55. !56- i57. J5S

The Cathedral of Siena ... ... ... ... 1. Louise M. Richter. 2. Langton Douglas 82

“Andrea Palladio” ... ... ... ... Banister F. Fletcher ... ... 236

Current Architecture : —

Illustrations: -“Westbrook,” Godaiming: Balfour and Turner, Architects, 38, 39, 40. London and County Bank,
Wandsworth : Cheston and Perkin, Architects, 41, 42. House at Wendover, Bucks : Marshall and Vickers,
Architects, 73, 74, 75, 76. Lodge and Entrance Gates, Footscray Place, Kent: R. Frank Atkinson, Architect,
76, 77. “ Sandhouse,” Witley, for Mr. |oseph King: F. W. Troup, Architect, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124. Lloyd's
Registry: T. E Collcutt, Architect, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158. Cornbury Park, Oxon : John Belcher, A.R.A.,
Architect, 154, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163. The Royal School of Art Needlework, South Kensington : F. B. Wade,
Architect, 189, 190, 191. Fire Brigade Station, Euston Road, W.C. : W. E. Riley, Superintending Architect,
London County Council, 192, 193. Joint Station of the East Indian and Bengal and Magpur Railways, Howrah,
Calcutta: Halsey Ricardo, Architect, 194, 195. Christ's Hospital, West Horsham: Aston Webb, A.R.A., and
E. Ingress Bell, Architects, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235

Cust, R. H. Hobart

Douglas, Professor R. Langton

Education, Architectural. I. and II.

T. Bailey

80, 83, 203

Saunders, A . T. Bollon, W. G. B. Lewis 177, 217

Enlart, C. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 42

Exeter Cathedral, How it was Built. I. ... ... Professor W. R. Lethaby ... 109, 167

Illustrations, 1st Article: — Plan, 109. Interior, from the West, 1x0. Border to Clerestory Windows, 111. Minstrel’s
Gallery, North Side of Nave, 112. View across Transepts, showing Pulpitum, 113. The Image Wall and
Central Door, 117. Statue over Central Door, 118. David, 11S. Corbel at South-East Angle of Crossing, 166.

North Transeptal Tower, 167. Plan of Norman Church, 168. Corbel-table Turrets, South Tower, 168. South
View of Norman Church, 168. Exeter Cathedral: Plan, 169. Exterior of the Choir from the North, 171.
Exterior of the Nave from the South, 172. Interior of the Nave from the Clerestory, t73. Restoration of North
Walk of Cloister, 174. Vault, Eastern Chapels, 175. Cor e Marble-Work, 175.

Figure-Sculpture in England, Medieval ... ... Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner 23, 143

Fletcher, Banister F. ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... 236

Forms of the Tuscan Arch ... ... ... Rev. J. Wood Brown ... ... 65

Illustrations: — Arch Por' S. Maria, Florence, 66. Door of Bigallo, Florence, 67. North Door, S. M. Forisportam,

Lucca, 67. Door of Torre delle Ore, Lucca, 69. South Facade Arch, San Martino, Lucca, 70. External Arch,

Porta dell’ Annunziata, Lucca, 70. West Door, S. Stefano, Florence, 71. Campanile Arch, S. Piero Somaldi,

Luc a, 72.

Gardner, Arthur ...

Graham, Alexander
Guildhall, Peterborough, The

Illustration, 229.

Holroyd, Charles ...

Horsley, Gerald C.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built...

Knossos, The Palace of. I.

Lethaby, Professor W. R.

Liverpool Cathedral Competition ...

Illustrations : — The Des'gn placed First by the Assessors.
Road, 224. Plan of Crypt, 225. Cross Section, 226.

Loftie, Rev. W. J. ...

Macartney, Mervyn
MacColl, D. S.

Marshall and Vickers

Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England

...

23, M3

Rev. W. /. Loftie

230

Professor W. R. Lethaby

109, 167

R. Phene Spiers

196

109, 167

F. M. Simhson

... 225

G. Gilbert Scott, Architect. Elevation to St. James’s
Ground Plan, 227. Longitudinal Section, 228.

1, 164, 230
... 141

... 48, 87, I40, 187, 222
••• 73, 74, 75, 76

Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner

Chapter IV. : First Gothic Sculpture, 1160-1275

Illustrations : — Head in Cloister, Bridlington, 27. Vault-corbel in N. Transept, Lichfield Cathedral, 27. Wells
Cathedral: (a) Vault-corbel, S. Transept; (ft) Label-head, Nave (East Bay); ( c ) Capital, N. Transept, 28.
Llandaff Cathedral. Head in Capital of Nave, 28. Wells Cathedral. Label-head in West Bays of Nave
(N. side), 28. Salisbury Cathedral: (a) Corbel-head, East Bays of Nave; ( b ) Corbel-head, S.E. Transept;

( c ) Corbel-head in Quire, 29. (a and b) Boxgrove Priory Church. Corbel-heads in Quire, 29. (a and b ) Box-
grove Priory. Label-heads in Quire, 29. Purbeck Sculpture: (a) Rochester Cathedral, Corbel-head in Quire ;
(ft) Salisbury Cathedral, Corbel-head, E. Transept ; ( c ) Salisbury Cathedral, Corbel-head, Main Transept, 29.
(a) Wells Cathedral, Label-head, West Bays of Nave ; (ft) Salisbury Cathedral, Corbel-head, West Bays of
Nave ; (c and d) Westminster Chapter, Label-heads of Wall Arcade; (e, /, and g) Salisbury Chapter, Label-heads
of Wall Arcade ; ( h ) Salisbury Quire-screen, Label-head of Arcade ; (i) Durham Quire, Corbel-head, 30.
Lincoln Cathedral. Label-head in “Angel Choir,” 31. Hayling Church (near Portsmouth), Spur of Base, 31.
Oxford Cathedral. Vault-corbel in Chapter-house, 32. Wells Cathedral. Vault-corbel in Passage to Chapter-
house, 32. Wells Cathedral. Vault-corbel, N. Transept, 32. Lichfield Cathedral. Arch-mould to N. Transept
Doorway, 32. Lincoln Cathedral. South Doorway of “ Angel Choir,” 33. Westminster Chapter-house.
Moulding of Doorway, 33. Salisbury Chapter-house. Moulding of Doorway, “ The Virtues and Vices,” 33.
Figure Capitals of First Gothic Period : (a) Wells Cathedral, N. Porch, “ Martyrdom of S. Edmund ” ; (ft) Wells,
S. Transept, in W. Aisle; (c) Wells, in North Aisle, East Bay; (d) Durham Quire, in Triforium, N. si’e;
(e) Lincoln, Corbel in S.E. Transept; (/) Lichfield Chapter, Capital of Wall Arcade, 34. Lincoln Cathedral,
Capital of Door in South Quire Aisle, 35. Grotesques of the Thirteenth Century : (a) Lincoln Cathedral,
Dragon on Plinth, N. side; (6) Oxford Cathedral, Corbel in Chapter-house ; ( c ) Hayling Church, Spur of Base;

(d) Hayling Church, Capital of Font Shaft; ( e ) Wells, Corbel in N. Transept; (/) Chichester Cathedral,
Gargoyle on N. Side of Nave ; (g) Chichester, N. Quire Aisle, 36.

Index

1X7

i V

Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture in England — continued. i-aqb

Chapter V. : First Gothic Figure-Sculpture Carving in Relief ... ... ... 143

Illustrate ns : — Stone Reliefs, 1 urham, 143, Relief, Bristol Elder Lady Chapel, 144. Worcester South-East Tran-
Ditto, 145. Westminster Abbey, Chapel of St. Edmund, 145. Reliefs, Westminster Abbey North
Transept. West Side, 146. Salisbury Chapter-house, “Lot and his Daughters," 146. Ditto, “Jacob's
Brethren," 147 Ditto, The Ark, 147. Ditto, “ Pharaoh's Dream," 148. Salisbury Anc ent Choir Screen, 148.

Ditto, 149. Reliefs from Angel Choir, Lincoln: (a) Angel with Harp; (b) Madonna; (c) Angel with Spear;

[,/, Angel swinging Censer, 150. Plan of Angel Choir, Lincoln Cathedral, 151. Reliefs from Angel Choir,

./ Angel with Scales: (6) The Expulsion, 152. Ditto, (a) Angel with Crowns, ( b ) Angel holding small Figure;

(o Angel with Book ; (d) Angel with Scroll in lap, 153.

Mediaeval Southampton ... ... ... ... Robert W. Carden ... . ... ... 52

Illustrations: — North Bailey Wall, 52. N.W. Angle, with Arundel and Catchcold Towers, 54. Interior of Arundel
Tower, 54. Castle Watergate, 55. The Arcading with King John’s Palace and the “ Blue Anchor" Postern,

55. Westgate, from the Quay, 56. fl he Old Guardroom, 56. The Westgate, 57. The Spanish Prison, 58.

The Watergate, 59. God’s House Tower, 59. Back of the Walls, 60. Eastgate, 60. The Polymond Tower, 61.

The Bargate, 62. Arundel Tower, before the rebuilding of “Old Tower" Inn, 63. S. Michael's Church, 63.

Font, S. Michael's Church, 64. Tudor House, 64.

Mr. Watt’s Colossal, Equestrian Statue

Illustration : — “ Physical Energy,” 140.

D. S. MacColl

140

Newton, Ernest

... 78

Orvieto Cathedral ...

... R. Langton Douglas

... 203

Illustrations: — Plan, 203 View from the North-west, 204. Alternative Designs for the Fagade, by Lorenzo del

Maitano, 206, 207. General View of Carvings on two Centre Piers of the Facade, 208. General View of
Carvings on the Outside Piers of the Fagade, 209. The Fagade, Details : The Creation, 210. Ditto, Adam and
Eve in Paradise, 21 1. Ditto, The Nativity, The Adoration of the Magi, The Visitation, 212. Ditto, The Resur¬
rection, 213. Ditto, The Inferno, 214. The Interior, looking East, 215.

Palace of Knossos, Crete, The

... R. Phene Spiers

196

Illustrations : — Plan of the Palace, Facing page 197. Ruins of the Palace. General View of Remains on the East
Slope, 197. Western Court and the Great Gypsum Wall, 198. Plan of Conjectural Restorations, 199. Entrance
to Throne Room, 200. The Throne, 200.

Palladio, Andrea

1. Reginald Blomfeld. 2. Banister F. Fletcher

127,

236

Palmer, G. W.

Peterborough Guildhall

Rev. W . J . Loftie ...

229,

230

Plates ;

Lithograph : The Last of Newgate. From a Draining by Muivhead Bone. January.

Frontispieces: Housebreaking in the Strand. From a Drawing by Muivhead Bone. February.
The Guildhall. From a Drawing by Muivhead Bone. June.

Prior, Edward S.

23, i43

Ricardo, Halsey ... ... ... ...

... 97,

W4> 195

Richter, Louise M.

... 82

Riley, W. E.

192, 193

Royal Academy, Architecture and the :

V. A Discussion— Conclusion

1. Alexander Graham. 2. D . S . MacColl. 47

Royal Academy, 1903, Architecture at the. I.

D.S. MacColl

222

Siena Cathedral

Simpson, Professor F. M.

37) 225

Southampton, Mediaeval

Robert W. Carden ...

... 52

Spiers, R. Phene

196

Stevens, Alfred, The Wellington Monument of

D. S. MacColl

... 87

Sturgis, Russell ... ... ...

... 78

Tanner, H., Junr. ...

164

Troup, F. W. ... ... ... . ...

120, 121, 122,

123, 124

Tuscan Arch, Forms of the

Rev.J. Wood Brown

... 65

Wade, F. B.

189,

190, 191

Watts, G. F.

140

Webb, Aston, A.R.A.

230, 231, 232, 233,

234. 235

Wellington Monument of Alfred Stevens, The

D. S. MacColl

... 87

Illustrations : — Full-size Model for the Equestrian Statue as designed to be be seen from the Nave, Frontispiece. Thd
Equestrian Figure from the small Sketch-Model, 87. Full-size Model, front view, 88. Ditto, another view, 89.
Ditto, as designed to be seen from the N. Aisle, 90. Donatello’s- Gattamelata at Padua, 91. Head of the Duke,
from the fulf-size Model, 92. Study by Alfred Stevens for the Equestrian Statue, 93. View of the full-size
Model for the Monument in Stevens’s studio, with corrections in pencil by Stevens, 94. The Monument as it
now stands in St. Paul's, 95. The Original Sketch-Model for the Monument (South Kensington), 96.

EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, HIS MAJESTY’S PRINTERS, DOWNS PARK ROAD, HACKNEY, LONDON, N.E.

Abingdon.

There are many towns and villages in
England which maybe regarded as, in themselves,
schools and museums of architecture. The cathe¬
dral cities have engrossed our attention, not only
to the exclusion of places where there is no
minster as a central feature, hut even of the
minor features in these cities themselves. There
is much to see in Salisbury, for example, besides
the cathedral— much in Chichester. But, from
this point of view, there are smaller towns which
rival even Salisbury or Chichester in the abund¬
ance of their interesting and beautiful houses.
Stamford will at once occur to the mind, where
the parish churches must be added to the domes¬
tic buildings ; or Burford, a dead borough, which
at one time must have displayed a street of
palaces; or Bradford, or Tewkesbury, or Cor-
sham, or Newbury, or, in short, any place where
trade and manufactures were brisk in the years
before the Reformation, where good materials
were to be had on the spot, and wheie neither
king nor baron nor abbot repressed the aesthetic
ambition of the burghers. Such old towns
abound. In several of them the architectural

PACT of (WISJWN ASSPY

relics take us back to Roman times ; but while a
well-preserved hypocaust or a mosaic pavement is
rare, such early features as a Norman keep, an
Edwardian church, or a half-timbered house, are
frequently found. Abingdon, it may be observed,
from the peculiarity of its history — a peculiarity
which it shares with St. Albans, Bury St. Ed¬
munds, Gloucester, and other places — -is deficient
in mediaeval domestic buildings. The abbots of
these towns discouraged settlers. There were
seldom any local manufactures. The town grew,
not on account of the abbey patronage, but in
spite of its influence. The oldest houses now to
be found at Abingdon, when we pass by those of
the abbey itself, are of post-Reformation date.
From the point of view indicated above, the town
shows us specimens of Norman, in one of the
churches, St. Nicholas; of First Pointed, in some
of the domestic buildings of the abbey; of the
Decorated style in the other church, St. Helen’s ;
of Perpendicular in a few of the out-buildings of
the monks and the greater part of the last-named
church and the bridge. The latest Gothic is,
however, scarce, and the more remarkable of the

VOL. XIII. — A

A bin cr don.

A bingdon .

buildings were erected after the dissolution of the
monastery, and when the abbey church had fallen

into ruin.

Of the remains still existing, some interesting
features should be noticed. Mr. Harry Redfern
has explored the site of Abingdon Abbey, and the
municipal authorities, the Mayor and Corporation,
have warmly seconded his efforts for the preserva¬
tion of what remains. The church has wholly
disappeared. It was, no doubt, to eastward of
St. Nicholas, which stands, and has stood since
Norman times, to eastward of the market place.
A meadow behind Abbey House is locally and
traditionally pointed out as the site. If so, it
must have been very long, and the cloisters and
residential buildings, like those of Westminster
Abbey and many other ancient Benedictine
houses, must have covered the ground to south¬
ward, between it and the Thames, if they did not
extend across a bridge to the islet on which the
modern house called The Abbey is built. Of
these buildings, only foundations and a few carved
stones are left of the church, the chapter house,
the cloister, the abbot’s house and ther domestic
offices, the bakehouse and the brewtrouse. To
westward of the probable sites of these portions
is a large and very interesting building of which
I am able, by the kindness of Mr. Redfern, to offer
a plan and some photographic views. To west¬
ward is a modern brewery, which may well occupy
the ground formerly taken up by this most im¬
portant feature of a great mediaeval monastery.
Rather to the south, on an island of the Thames,
was, and is, the Abbey Mill. Abingdon was cer¬
tainly not deficient in either bread or beer, and
the solicitude of the great Abbot, St. Ethelwold,
afterwards Bishop of Winchester, in providing
both for the monks, is specially recorded in the
Chronicle.

The long building just mentioned may have
formed some part of the lodgings of the Abbot, or
still more likely it may have been part of an
infirmary. The abbots, before the thirteenth
century, were noted for their medical skill. To
it they owed the most important of their outlying
estates — the church manor of Kensington, where
they are still commemorated in St. Mary “ Abbott’s”
and several other local names. Faricius, we read,
was skilled in the treatment of disease, and to his
care Aubrey Vere, the lord of the manors of
Hyde, and Neyt, and Kensington, among others,
entrusted Geoffrey, his son, who was in ill-health.
Faricius so far relieved the sufferings of the youth
that when he lay on his death-bed he besought
his father to grant to his kind physician 270 acres
of the last named manor.

Faricius was born at Arezzo, in Italy, and came
to England apparently as physician to Henry I.

In this capacity he attended Queen Matilda at
the birth of her first child, she having, it seems,
resided near Abingdon for the purpose. To her
gifts on this occasion, Abingdon owed much, in¬
cluding the materials of the Palace at Andersey.
When, in after years, Faricius would have been
appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, the monks
objected because of the mundane character of his
principal occupation ; and he died Lord Abbot
of Abingdon, to which office he was consecrated
in 1100 by Bishop Robert of Lincoln. It will
be remembered that Henry I. owed his surname
of Beauclerc to the good education he had received
at Abingdon.

Of the Norman time, there remains now only
the doorway, in the market place, of St. Nicholas
Church, so severely “restored” in 1881, if not
before, that nothing of the eleventh century,
except the form, is left. It is recorded that
Faricius built the Abbey Church, probably the
eastern end, and possibly the transepts ; but all
this has perished. He died in 1115, and was
locally regarded as a saint, though he was never
canonised.

Two other abbots should be noticed. Nicholas
of Coleham, or Culham, built the bridge at a spot
south of the town called the “ borough ford,” or
Burford ; and to him also is attributed the exist¬
ing structure of St. Nicholas Church. He had
been Prior, and was Abbot from 1289 to 1307.
The bridge was continued by a causeway and
further bridge to Culham in the fifteenth century.
The seven arches of the Burford end are all
pointed, though disguised in part by a round-
arched widening, and are ribbed.

The bridge was taken in charge by a Guild
of Holy Cross, which built itself a chapel or
aisle in the church of St. Helen, as we shall see
further on. The last Abbot is named in a roll of
arms of 1515. He is described as “ Thabbot of
Abyngdon, lord thomas pentecost,” and his arms
are, “ Argent, a cross fleury, between four mart¬
lets,” impaling “ Sable, on a fess between three
doves volant argent, ensigned with haloes and
membered or, a lion’s face between two covered
cups gules.” Similar doves, but without haloes,
appear in the arms of the Lord Abbot of Bury,
John Melford, alias Reve, whose name precedes
that of Abbot Pentecost. In 1537, Pentecost and
twenty-five monks surrendered to Henry VIII.
The Abbot received a grant of the manor of
Cumnor, and a pension. The estates of the
Abbey were estimated to produce £1,876 10s. g d.
a year, equal to some £18,000 now. The Lord
Thomas Pentecost, resuming his patronymic, be¬
came Dr. Thomas Rowland, D.D., but does not
figure again in ecclesiastical history. The in¬
fluence of the abbots had been always to repress

A bingdon.

REMAINS OF THE ABBEY BUILDINGS, FROM THE NORTH-EAST.

By kind permission of Mr. II . Redfern.

the trade of the townsfolk. The early struggles
of the burghers were for leave to hold markets
and other small privileges, and were uniformly
put down with a high hand. In 1327 the neigh¬
bouring city of Oxford, in the person of the Mayor
and some of the students, came to the help of

Abingdon, but spoilt a good cause by their
excesses. Part of the abbey was burnt in this
riot, which was not quelled until twelve of the
rioters had been hanged. It maybe imagined that,
once the abbey was dissolved, no one raised a
hand to save the buildings; and where good stone

A bingdon.

INTERIOR, GROUND FLOOR, ABBEY BUILDINGS. By kind permission 0/ Mr. H. Red/nn.

A Inn g don.

INTERIOR, LONG ABBEY BUILDING, FIRST FLOOR.

A bin g don.

was scarce, it is only surprising that this substan¬
tial fragment remains.

The building shows two finely-vaulted cham¬
bers on the ground floor, with two more in an
upper storey, and adjoining them to the eastward
a long chamber with an oak roof. To the south¬
ward looking across a narrow lawn, which appears
to have been in part, at least, enclosed by build¬
ings, to the Thames, was a solid stone wall
pierced by several traceried windows. The win¬
dows of the vaulted chambers are in the First
Pointed style, the Decorated style appearing on
the north side in a kind of court. The long
building, however, had only windows towards the
river in its two centre bays ; the two bays at the
west end, and the one, all that remains of two
which were apparently at the eastern end, look¬
ing, according to some indications in the wood¬
work, into a corridor along the north side. The
roof, too, shows that the two central bays on the
first floor were separate chambers, with Perpen¬
dicular windows looking south, and with fireplaces
of the same period.

There is no internal communication apparent
between this eastern building — all of the Perpen¬
dicular period — and the very substantial thirteenth

Photo: W.J. Vasey.

13TH CENTURY FIREPLACE, IN UPPER
FLOOR OF ABBEY BUILDING.

century house to westward. In it all the original
features are First Pointed, but two Decorated
windows appear on the north front. An outside
stair led to a narrow door. The parapet of the
roof seems to have been battlemented. The
groining within is very fine, and has survived a
long period both of neglect and of injury. Now
that it is well cared for, we may hope that archaeo¬
logists competent to pronounce may identify it
and the adjoining chambers. Meanwhile guess¬
work would be wholly out of place. The external
chimney is well known, being probably the only per¬
fect thirteenth century example in existence. The
fireplace, which corresponds to it within, is also of
the highest rarity, with its graceful shafts and
carved capitals worthy of the age which has left
us the chapter house of Southwell. The chimney
long carried a vane, which is still in existence,
after having threatened, until it was taken down a
few years ago, to destroy the whole structure.
The chimney is now in no great danger except
from climbing plants. A second chimney, of the
same period in Mr. Redfern’s opinion, but wanting
the external hood, is on an adjoining building to
the westward. This, which was for some years a
Bridewell, now consists of tenements, which, with
many of the houses in the immediate neighbour¬
hood, exhibits in roof and walls traces everywhere
of mediaeval architecture. The abbey precincts
extended to Bridge Street, the houses on the east
side of which are still described in legal docu¬
ments as “ within the boundaries of the late dis¬
solved Abbey of St. Mary of Abingdon.” The
Perpendicular gateway opens on the market
place.

Near the church of St. Helen a fragment, con¬
sisting of little more than a single wall with a
Decorated window in it, exists of a cell of the
nunnery of Godstow. d his relic was for many
years a malt store, but, with an adjoining house
of good Georgian style, has been rescued and
worked into a very charming private residence by
Mr. Redfern. Across a narrow street are the
massive tower and the many gables of St. Helen’s
church. On the south a wide quay is flanked by
a range of almshouses and the two side-entrances
to the churchyard. The spire is very familiar to
passengers by river to or from Oxford, and figures
in many landscapes from the days of Turner
down.

In addition to these monastic relics of the
Gothic style, there are the two churches, both of
which present features of interest. St. Nicholas
stands on the east side of the market place, and
must have closely abutted on the abbey church,
like St. Gregory by St. Paul’s or St. Margaret
beside the Westminster. It is said to have been
built by Nicholas of Culham ; but that Prior, who

A bmgd 072 .

I3TH CENTURY CHIMNEY, ABBEY BUILDINGS.

Photo : W. J. Vasey.

was afterwards Abbot, died in 1307, and a consider¬
able portion of the church, especially the western
doorway, is of the Norman period. A very “thorough
restoration ” in 1881 destroyed the evidences on
which an opinion could be based. In fact, the
church as we now see it is of the Victorian period,
even some relics of stained glass bearing the arms
of Richard, Duke of York, the father of Ed¬
ward IV., having been removed and sold. A
further falsification of the record occurs on the
south side, where the parapet is adorned with a
series of small shields with a text from the Psalms
in Latin in Lombardic letters. There are, or
were, some curious features of a domestic cha¬
racter on the west and north sides, including a
gabled stair-turret, which seem to suggest either
that a priest’s residence adjoined the church or
that it was connected with some abbey buildings
which have now disappeared. At the south¬
eastern corner it adjoins the fine Perpendicular
gateway. The narrow street just outside the
abbey gateway is very picturesque. On the north
side is the church ; on the east side is the ancient
arch, with a hall, now occupied by the munici¬
pality, above. On the south is a further range of
Perpendicular windows and doorways, now the
Mayor’s court and magistrates’ room. These
occupy the ground floor, a municipal hall of very
good but simple Palladian design forming the first

floor. The Gothic gate had originally a smaller
archway on the north side only, but a second
arch on the south side was among the alterations
carried out during one of the “restorations.”
The chamber above the gate is approached within
from the Town Hall. It was within living memory
used as a debtors’ prison, where the poor denizens
were to be seen hanging their hats and bags for
alms from its stone-mullioned windows. It is now
in excellent repair, and well furnished for small
gatherings and Masonic lodge meetings.

Of the abbey buildings no other complete re¬
mains are to be seen. Two large modern houses,
one on the north side of the street, called Abbey
House, just within the gate, the other, called The
Abbey, further on, approached by a bridge over a
side stream, should be named, as well as a net¬
work of little tenements and lanes, among which,
as already mentioned, fragments of old masonry
may be identified. Among the houses is the chapel
of a Calvinistic sect known from the name of its
founder, John Tiptaft, who preached here seventy
or eighty years ago.

PYom St. Nicholas to St. Helen’s the distance
is considerable. St. Nicholas, as we have seen,
is outside the western gate of the abbey, but we
find traces of monastic buildings close to St.
Helen’s also. The Lord Abbot, no doubt, enjoyed
the long garden with its ancient quav on the bank

A bivgdon .

ST. HELEN’S WHARF, WITH A VIEW OF ST. HELEN S SPIRE AND
CHRIST’S HOSPITAL BUILDINGS, ABINGDON.

THE HOUSE AT THE EXTREME RIGHT OK THE VIEW IS HELENSTOWE.

I o

A In npdon.

Photo : W. J. Vasey.

ST. HELEN’S CHURCH, SHOWING THE FIVE AISLES.

of the Thames. A number of good houses of the
early Georgian period now stand on the south side
of East St. Helen's Street, and have gardens
which reach to the Abbot’s Quay. Some of them
are mentioned further on.

St. Helen’s Church consists, strictly speaking)
of a chancel and nave with two aisles, each flanked
by a long chapel. Within, all these separate
parts are thrown into the seated area of the
church, which is thus described as having five
aisles. It has not, however, suffered so much in
recent years as St. Nicholas, the greatly larger
area rendering a complete gutting and re-building
too expensive. The chapels are now called — that
on the south, Holy Cross aisle, and that on the
north, Jesus aisle. The Lady Chapel occupies
the north aisle proper, and the corresponding
south aisle is dedicated to St. Katharine. A fine
tomb near the north porch commemorates John
Roysse, whom we meet again as the founder of
the Grammar School. He died in 1571. The
carving of his arms — “ Gules, a griffin, segreant,
argent ” — has been well imitated in the decora¬
tions of the new Grammar School in the Albert
Park. The tomb has been somewhat altered and
pulled about, and the old “ shewbread ” for

distribution is no longer laid on it. There are
many other monuments of the sixteenth century,
when, as John Leland wrote in 1540, the town
“ stondeth by clothing,” as indeed it does still.
The hour-glass for the pulpit — on which, in 1591,
the churchwardens spent fourpence — has disap¬
peared. There are two monumental brasses, one
of 1417, one of 1501. The view of the liighly-
irregular five gables from the churchyard, round
which the three almshouses are built, will be
admired.

The almshouses on the west side of the church¬
yard are the oldest, having been built about 1553.
They look best from the garden outside, where a
good bow window and small cupola, or bell turret,
group very happily with the spire of the church
rising beyond. The long cloister porch of dark
oak admits the visitor to a hall which serves as a
chapel. In it are hung the portraits of several
benefactors, and especially of the founders of the
allied charities, the building and maintenance of
the bridges over the Thames and the Ock, and the
endowment of the Grammar School.

The building of the bridge in the fifteenth
century increased the prosperity of the town,
and the names of several wealthy burghers are

A bingdon.

i i

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL. CHRIST’S HOSPITAL.

A bingdon.

i 2

connected with it. Burford, “ the borough ford,”
as'the name denotes, was the only way across pre¬
viously, and no doubt was very often dangerous,
especially when the Thames was high. With the
oldest of the almshouses in the churchyard, and
with one of the chapels in St. Helen’s Church, is
connected the history of a Guild of the Holy

increased. In 1797 the additional almshouse on
the south side of the graveyard was built as funds
permitted, in a quaint style, not unpicturesque.
In 1707, a further benefaction by Charles Twitty,
an Auditor of the Exchequer, supplemented by
other gifts duly recorded on tablets on the front,
led to the erection of the pretty little building on

Photo : W. J. Vasey.

TWITTY’S ALMSHOUSES.

Cross, to whom the care and repair of the bridge
was entrusted. When guilds were abolished by
Act of Parliament in the reign of Edward VI.,
the lands which belonged to this fraternity were
granted for the same uses to trustees, the most
prominent being Sir John Mason, Chancellor of
Oxford, a native of the town. The estates have
increased in value, and under a recent scheme
the number of the inmates has been largely

the north side. It has a grandiose pediment and
a small lantern and vane above, and forms a
pleasing object with its flower beds at the entrance
of the churchyard from St. Helen’s Street.

Nearly as old is Tomkins’s Almshouse in Ock
Street. The entrance gateposts admit us to two
rows of small houses on either side of a narrow
garden, and a curious clock tower and lantern at
the northern end. It is of brick, in a very simple

A bin o don.

TOMKINS’S ALMSHOUSE, OCIC STREET. FOUNTAIN IN WALL OF HOUSE, QCK STREET, DATE 1 719.

A billed on.

but effective style. The tower bears an inscrip¬
tion : —

These Alms Houses were built
in the year 1733 by the order of
Mr. Benjamin Tomkins the Elder
of this town and according to
the form prescribed by him to his
Sons Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Joseph
Tomkins who were executors to
his last Will and Testament by
which he gave Sixteen hundred
Pounds to endow the same for
four Poor Men and four Poor
W omen for Ever.

Close to these almshouses in Ock Street is a
curious brick well or fountain, now sadly neglected
and dirty. It was connected with a conduit
which still exists on the hill above, being included
within the boundaries of the Albert Park. The
fountain is only about five feet high, but the
proportions would suit a much larger building.
It is inscribed “ Mr. R. Ely, 1719/’ and so is
older than the almshouses and than any of the
Tomkins buildings. In the admirable account of
Abingdon in Kelly’s Directory for Berkshire, we are
told that it was erected by Richard Eley in 1673, a
date which might connect it with the designer of
the Market House ; but, apart from the spelling of
the name, no inscription to this effect can now be
seen on the fountain, and I am forced to suspect
an unusually accurate writer of napping on this
occasion.

Next in strict chronological order, therefore,
should come the famous Market House. A
smaller market building stood on the site, faced
bv the “ Holv Cross,” of which the Chronicle of
Abingdon ( Rolls Series) has so much to say, and
which was built by the same fraternity as the bridge
already mentioned. The cross was destroyed by
General Waller in 1644. When Abingdon be¬
came an assize town, the burgesses determined to
build a suitable county hall. The old Market
House was accordingly taken down, and the
present Market House was specially built to
accommodate the courts. The old house may
have been like that of Wallingford, a little further
down the Thames, or that of Uxbridge in Middle¬
sex, or that of Peterborough.

The new Market House is the great architectural
glory of Abingdon, and will strike the visitor who
comes upon it suddenly, whether from the
wretched shed which does duty as a railway
station in Stert Street, or up Bridge Street from
the Thames, with a feeling of admiration in the

double sense of that word — surprise and pleasure.
It stands free from its surroundings, and is built
of what appears to be ashlar in good-sized blocks.
The outline is symmetrical, the east and west ends
consisting of two bays, the north and south of
four. Each bay has an arch, but the pilasters
seen on the exterior rise through the upper storey
to the roof. The order is Composite and boldly
carved. At the western end, between the arches,
is a small bracket with acanthus to suit the style,
the only piece of pure ornament. At the back —
that is, the northern side — is a square tower of
three storeys rising to the level of the top of the
roof, with its dormers, of the main building. The
windows of the staircase in the tower have the
cross mullions common under the Stuarts. The
roof of the tower is flat with a plain parapet,
relieved by three urns on each face. The sloping
leaden roof of the main building has a balustraded
platform in the centre from which the domed
lantern rises, the windows of which are round-
headed or triangular on alternate faces. This
cupola, on which is an elaborate vane, is of
wood roofed with lead. The roof of the tower, the
open storey, is interesting, being made of oak
rafters, flat, but supported by a series of arched
beams, from the middle one of which a lamp is
suspended by wrought ironwork.

The houses press very closely on the north and
north-east side, and Mr. Vasey, the photographer,
had some difficulty in bringing the tower into
focus. The rafters and beams of the roof were
also taken at an awkward angle, but Mr. Redfern’s
plan will have made all plain. The fine chamber
designed for an assize court has been used of late
for an art school, being admirably lighted.
Visitors should not neglect to see the view from
the roof, which is easy of access by the staircase
of shallow steps arranged in sets of five.

The local tradition which assigns this beautiful
building to Inigo jones is obviously mistaken.
Inigo died in 1652. The old Market House was
not pulled down until 16 77, quarter of a century
later. Mr. Reginald Blomfield has suggested
(“ Renaissance Architecture,” i. 130) that the de¬
signs were prepared by Webb, who succeeded to
Inigo's business, and there are certain points of
resemblance between it and Ashdown, in the
same county, unquestionably by Webb. The
same difficulty, however, occurs here again, though
not to so great a degree, for Webb had been dead
three years in 16 77. The Market House, too,
was not commenced till 28th May, 1678, when
the foundation stone was laid at the north-western
corner. The modern inscription on the wall is
therefore incorrect. Work went on till 1684, but
the building had been opened for use a year
before.

A bingdon.

Photo : W. J . Vasey.

THE MARKET HOUSE, ABINGDON.

NOW ATTRIBUTED TO CHRISTOPHER KEMPSTER. SOMETIME A CLERK OF THE WORKS

UNDER WREN AT ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL.

By the kindness of Mr. Arthur Preston, of
Whitefield, Abingdon, I am able to offer what I
conceive to be a solution of the questions thus
indicated. Mr. Preston’s late father rescued cer¬
tain documents which were treated as waste paper
by the municipal authorities of a former genera¬

tion. Among them are the accounts for the
building of the Market House, and I am enabled
to write with them before me.

The first item in the account is dated January
1st, 1677, that is, in our reckoning, 1678. The
whole entry is as follows: — “To Christopher

1 6

A bingdon.

GROUND AND FIRST FLOOR PLANS.

By kind permission of Mr. H. Red fern

THE MARKET HOUSE.

A bingdon

VOL. XIII.-— B

THE BACK OF THE MARKET HOUSE, FROM EAST S. HELEN STREET. THE FLOOR OF THE MARKET HOUSE.

1 8

A bingdon.

— : ugl

\ _ llg

. _ . __ . - ------

t j
41

THE TOWN HALL AND MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS. WINDOW IN HALL OF MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS.

A bingdon.

Kempster in part for monies due to him for build¬
ing the Sessions House . . . £30.” Else¬

where Kempster, who usually has “ Mr. ” before
his name, is described as “ the undertaker.” In
all, the payments made to him amount to £1,543,
the last being on January 14th, 1682 (1683), when
he received “ in full for all his work done at the
Market House,” £345 10s. Kempster was almost
certainly the same man who was one of Wren’s
clerks at St. Paul’s, and lies buried at Burford, in
Oxfordshire. That he designed the Market House
seems very probable, and that he was not a com¬
mon workman, but a person of consideration, may
be deduced from another item in the accounts : —
“ April 14th, 1681. Spent at different times with
Mr. Kempster when the account was made with
him, 7s.” If, then, he did not actually make the
design, he must have obtained it from a master,
and that master was more probably Wren than
either Inigo Jones or Webb. At all events, the
enquiry has been advanced a stage, and we know,
at least, who built the Market House. It is
interesting to note the second entry in the account
is for boards supplied by one John Webb, and
that the iron work, which is very good, was
wrought by Thomas Tomkins, one of a family
elsewhere mentioned. The total cost was £2,840.

The Town Hall has been mentioned already as
being in part built on the old monastic gateway
and other outlying adjuncts of St. Mary’s Abbey.
Had these newer features been in such a style as
the Hotel, which occupies since 1864 the site of
the old New Inn, or in such a style as that of the
Corn Exchange, the result would have been dis¬
tressing. Even if, when adding to the old Gothic
buildings, some attempt had been made at using
what is often with futility called a harmonious
design, we might have had the old work disguised
or falsified. But the unsophisticated burghers of
the time of King George II. built their Town Hall
and the adjoining Council Chamber in what they
looked upon as the best and only reasonable style
of the day. The designer of the wonderful Market
House was no longer to be had ; but that, apart
from the Town Hall, there was a good architec¬
tural school in Abingdon is evident from an in¬
spection of some of the beautiful dated fronts to
which I hope to advert a little further on. A
leaden spout on the Town Hall is dated 1733, and
a certificate of insurance framed on the wall, with
many other interesting documents, is dated 1736.
The Council Chamber is reached from the Gothic
ground floor — part, it is believed, of a hospital
dedicated to St. John — by a handsome balustraded
oak staircase. Some interesting portraits are in
the largest room and a few pictures. The balcony
which formerly faced the street has disappeared.
In the small Council Chamber are many objects

worth examining, the first and best being the very
fine Venetian window, with its dark oak Ionic
columns. A remarkable collection of views of old
Abingdon and its vicinity is hung on the walls, and
both here and in the lobby are original documents
relating to the history of the town. Some of
them tell us of the systematic attack made upon
the liberties which had been first granted to the
town by Mary Tudor, when James II. and Chan¬
cellor Jeffreys seized the charter and removed
James Cordery, the Mayor. The framed “ Orders
in Council ” relating to this event are dated
27 November, 1687. In a strong room is pre¬
served the collection of gold and silver plate
which Messrs. Jewitt and St. John Hope describe
as “ one of the largest assemblages belonging to
any provincial town.” The mace dates from 1660,
having been made from an older one of the
Commonwealth period. A small silver mace, or
truncheon, one of three of various dates, bears the
arms of Edward VI. The whole collection is full
of interest, but hardly concerns us here.

The school was founded by John Roysse in
1563, and is well worthy of a visit. The entrance
adjoins that to the Town Hall, and is of a most
composite character, but how much in the design
is original, how much due to an eighteenth cen¬
tury attempt to imitate Gothic, and how much to
a recent “ restoration,” I cannot undertake to say.
The visitor finds himself in an extensive courtyard,
the municipal buildings partly Gothic, partly
Italian, being on his left, A little further south
an inscription over a low doorway catches the eye,
Ingredere ut proficias. The interior is panelled,
and has a gallery of seventeenth century character.
The headmaster's seat is of dark oak. The pre¬
sent occupation of the building by the Volunteers
has not injured it, and we may compare it with
the very interesting schoolroom of the same
period and character, still in use, at Bradford-on-
Avon in Wiltshire. The school has been removed
to a handsome and commodious new building
looking on the park at the north end of the town,
where a new quarter has sprung up of late years.
The school is connected with Pembroke College,
Oxford, and has been very successful. It is inte¬
resting to note the name of Dr. Lempriere among
the masters. An edition of the “ Classical Dic¬
tionary” was issued in 1804 while he was here.

Abingdon abounds in examples of domestic
architecture of the style sometimes if incorrectly
denominated “ Queen Anne.” The Americans
call it “ Colonial,” but of late it has been more
exactly described as “ Georgian ” — a name which,
in all the cases illustrated in this paper, fits them
very well. Of these the best examples are in East
St. Helen’s Street. The houses on the south side
of this street look on the old quay already men-

b 2

A hingdon.

tioned and the Thames. Some of them have
pretty old-fashioned gardens, each with its sum¬
mer house, looking over the river. Beginning with
the Old Bell Inn, close to the market place, we
note the tradition which connects it with the
holding of a Parliament during the Civil War, a
tradition which probably originated in a visit of
Charles I. and the sitting of a Council of War in
1644.

We next come to No. 20, Twickenham
House, a tvpical example of the style, but un¬
dated. Behind handsome gateposts are the stable
and coach-house, over which are various modern
apartments such as a billiard room, all retaining
the cross-mullioned windows which we see in the
oldest part of Kensington Palace, where they
probably date from the reign of Charles II. They
cannot be much later here. The western part of
the house is considerably later, but in a very good
style. The hall door is of wood. Some mantel¬
piece ornamentation in one of the rooms is par¬
ticularly pleasing, and seems to have been executed
in stucco. Altogether Twickenham House forms
a very satisfactory commencement of a street filled
with good examples. No. 30 is another, and there
are several more, all on the same side, ending with

He'enstowe, already mentioned as incorporating a
Gothic fragment. Over the do Dr is —

17. IT. 48

I. T. probably denotes Joseph Tomkins, one of
a family also commemorated by a fine house now
divided in Ock Street, by the almshouse already
mentioned, and by a very good house in Bath
Street, No. 36, which bears two tablets, cut in the
brickwork : —

A small house with a very good front is in East
St. Helen’s Street, on the northern side, No. 57.
It has an inscription : —

R E
1732.

h ; j ; Hi

IjJ

§4

Mm*

M, ii

TWICKENHAM HOUSE, 20, EAST S. HELEN STREET.

Photo : W. J. Vasey.

A bingdon .

2 I

DOORWAY OF TWICKENHAM HOUSE. 36, BATH STREET, DATED 1 722,

9 9

A bingdon.

The first two, in which the Tomkins initials
appear, form a group with a large house in Ock
Street, and the Dissenters’ Almshouse, already
mentioned, and all may be ascribed to the same
designer. The house which bears the initials of
R. R. is more ornate and elaborate, but on the
whole scarcely as satisfactory, depending as it
does, like too many of the modern houses of the
town, on ornament for its effect. An immoderate

conclusion that an architect, or possibly a school
of architecture, existed in Berkshire at this period,
before the first half of the eighteenth century had
elapsed. In 1725 Wood was showing his powers
at Bath. Burlington and his friends were at work
both in London and in York. House-building as
a fine art prevailed all over England, the impetus
given by Inigo Jones before the Civil War having
been revived by Wren and his contemporaries. It

57, EAST S. HELEN STREET. DATED 1 732.

Photo : W.J. Vasey.

use of gables, which came in and went out before
the building of the Market House, is a tendency
to be deprecated, but among the best or most
picturesque examples a little house fast going
to decay, in Bridge Street, with an elaborately
carved barge-board, probably of the sixteenth
century, will be noted with pleasure, as will some
simpler specimens of nearly the same age in Stert
Street and in West St. Helen’s Street.

A comparison of these and many other ex¬
amples, almost if not quite as good, leads to the

has been but little appreciated till during the past
quarter of a century, but its characteristics, which
seem incompatible with any but solid well-pro¬
portioned building in sound materials, stone, brick,
or timber, and which seem to perish when applied
to deceptive stucco or cast terra cotta, are
capable of development and honest application
at the present day. When studied with apprecia¬
tion and intelligence they are more likely to lead
us to fine works in the future than any attempt,
with our present building appliances, to imitate

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

the triumphs of the middle ages. It seems to me,
if we must imitate, which I am not prepared to
allow unreservedly, it is better to imitate such
satisfactory designs as those of the seventeenth

century Market House or the eighteenth century
Town Hall, than the comparatively gloomy
thirteenth or fourteenth century structures of the
Abbey. W. j. Loftie.

Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture in England.

CHAPTER IV,— FIRST GOTHIC SCULP¬
TURE, 1160-1275.

In our introduction we made some re¬
marks on the genius of Gothic figure-sculpture,
and tried to show how exhibiting itself in the
medium, of Gothic building, it found its capacities
and its limitations in stone. It may be well at
this point to refer to some other aspects of this
question, which we have to recognise in our
consideration of the subject.

It is clear that the phases of Gothic building, as
style succeeded style, were produced by a course
of masonic evolution, which owed little to acci¬
dents of individual invention or designing imagi¬
nation. In exactly the same way mediaeval figure-
sculpture went on its course under no distinct
leadership, advancing with the advance in artistic
skill of a whole nation, and not owing its improve¬
ments to the talent of any individual sculptor.
We are quite unable to label the periods of medi¬
aeval art by the names of any great masters such
as Pheidias in Greek or Donatello in Renaissance
sculpture. More distinctly than with the arts of
other periods the wholesale craft of the Middle
Ages seems to have merged in one art the per¬
sonal distinctions of the artist.

Still, in statue-making, where delicate distinc¬
tions of character or idea were expressed, the
personal talent of the sculptor had its individual
importance in the Gothic centuries as in others.
Though we make full allowance for the impersonal
nature of mediaeval church building, recognising
it as the combined work of a great body of crafts¬
men, witness the contemporary representations
of masons at work — for example, in the famous
window at Chartres where vault-rib and statue are
depicted as being shaped in the same workshop
- — yet the personal touch of each individual
sculptor must have had its own value. And so,
as time went on, certain individuals were bound
to be noticed as excelling in the making of
statues ; such men would become more and more
specialized, till from being mere proficients in a
certain branch of stone-carving, they would sepa¬
rate themselves from those who were only stone-
shapers, and become definitely “ imagers.” Thus
by the end of the thirteenth century we find such
mason-imagers mentioned in the accounts of the

building of the Eleanor Crosses.42 Yet it is clear,
from the way in which these sculptors are men¬
tioned, that their status was very different from
that of the modern artist. The men who made
the statues, the fragmentary remains of which
excite our admiration, had no distinct position
in their art as have the Royal Academicians of
to-day, nor were they gentleman-artists of the
Italian Cinquecento, welcomed at the court of
prince and prelate alike. The mediaeval sculptor
ranked as a stone-mason, and with men whose
skill we should now class as that of artizans. It
was the mason who was honoured : the statuary
of the thirteenth century had his status as
“ ccementarius,” the craftsman of stone-building.

So we find that while masons or master-masons
are recorded in mediaeval documents with consider¬
able frequency, sculptor is rarely mentioned, and
then in such connection that his work might just
as well have been stone-dressing as statue-carving.41
In England no mediaeval statue has been found
signed by the artist, nor do records allude to him
with any distinctness. Almost as a solitary indi¬
cation that it was possible in Gothic times to
appreciate the artist in sculpture, is the reference
of Matthew Paris to a M ariola pulchra by William
of Colchester, whom he elsewhere calls picior et
sculptor incomp arabilis. The sculptors of the most
distinct masterpieces — such as the Wells statues,
the Lincoln angels, the chapter-house figures at
Westminster — are unknown to us. In some in¬
stances we can deduce from entries in accounts
(as in the case of the Eleanor monuments) that
masons employed, like Master William of Ire¬
land,42 or Alexander of Abingdon,43 or goldsmiths
like Torel,44 the maker of the effigies of Eleanor
and Henry III. at Westminster, were figure-
artists, for the reason that they were paid for
imagines. We shall mention in due course in our
pages any such identifications as would avail us

41 See Gervase's well-known account of the rebuilding of
Canterbury Quire in 1175, in which “ sculptores ” are stone-
dressers.

42 In the accounts so much paid “ Magistro Willielmo de
Hibernia cimentario,” also “Willielmo de Hibernia imagina-
tori.”

4:1 Called in the accounts “ operarius,” for the making of Wal¬
tham Cross, as well as “ imaginator.”

44 In the accounts so much paid “ Magistro Will. Torel auri
fabro.”

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture.

for a history of Sculptors, but they are really few
and of small significance. An account of sculp¬
ture in mediaeval times can make nothing of the
personal element. Our sources for the Gothic
history differ very markedly from what are at
hand for either the Greek or Renaissance arts, in
which the individual achievement was distinctly
recognised, and the genius and circumstances of
certain celebrated artists constitute of themselves
the divisions of the subject. In Gothic sculpture,
while we acknowledge that the art of the statue
must in each case have been personal, we must
perforce treat the Gothic works in the aggregate,
grouping them under the headings of style, like
mouldings or arch-shapes.

Dealing then with figure-sculpture as part
and parcel of the church fabric, we might adopt
the conventional headings of book-Gothic and
label its divisions “ Transitional,” “ Early
English,” “ Geometrical,” “ Decorated,” and
“ Perpendicular.” Such a classification would,
however, suggest that some particular impetus
or origin of figure-technique lay in each of these
architectural phases, and this can hardly be
justified. Specific differences of corresponding
value to those readily generalised for the mould¬
ings and arch-shapes fail us in the domain of
the figure. We shall be safer with a simpler
classification, and will divide our sculpture as
“ First,” or “ Early Gothic ” ; “ Second,” or

“ Mid-Gothic ” ; and “ Third,” or “ Late Gothic,”
with the implication that the boundaries in these
divisions are indistinct, and the changes from
period to period those of growth, not kind.

Still, in a wide sense we may (as our intro¬
duction has suggested) ally our classification of
figure-sculpture to that of the architectural styles.
For example, we can associate the First Gothic
Sculpture with the sculpturesque dignity of first
Gothic building, in which the massive Romanesque
refined itself to the Gothic structural grace ; a
corresponding progress can be traced in the
efforts of the sculptor to realise the gracious facts
of human beauty. Then, this skill attained, Mid-
Gothic sculpture — just as its architecture — turned
to variety of expression, and while enriching the
simplicities of stone sculpture with the varied
expressions of different materials, lost its purely
architectonic intention in a romantic fulness of
detail. And then the last century of Gothic
sculpture, like the last of Gothic architecture, was
one rather of hackneyed production by established
guilds or schools of art. We find its work at
one time the dignified accomplishments of an
honoured and well-paid craftsmanship, at another
the cheap wares of a commercial industry.

The succeeding four chapters will deal with the
First or Early Gothic figure-sculpture, which

might be classified first by its occurrence in the
fabric of Transitional Gothic style (1160 to
1200) ; then by examples which, along with the
achievements of Early English building, grew in
importance and freedom of style from 1200 till
1250; till from c. 1250 to 1275 (in connection
with the Geometrical development of Early
English art) the great works of English sculpture
were produced, which in feeling and technique
must be classed as the best, or, at any rate, the
most characteristic of Gothic genius. But
throughout there was no break or any marked
step in the ever-increasing skill displayed by the
architectural sculptor. To present our subject
as divided into three at specified dates would be
to make too much of them, and would disguise
the distinctly continuous growth. A more effec¬
tive classification will be to treat the whole Early
Gothic figure-sculpture in one division, with sec¬
tions for the separate architectural uses which
gave a varying dignity and importance to it in the
architectural scheme. Our first section therefore
will present the head-stops, figure-corbels, figure-
medallions, bosses, and other distinct architectural
uses of figure-sculpture, which in first Gothic
sculpture come in marked contrast to the pictorial
scheme of Romanesque art. A second section
will deal with the relief representations of the
figure in spandrel and panel, which, starting in
such Romanesque pictorial conventions as our
last chapter illustrated, gradually acquired in the
hands of the Gothic builder the statuesque motive
of sculpture proper. A third section will illustrate
the statue itself, the standing detached figure,
which was the especial work of First Gothic
Sculpture. And, finally, our concluding section
will exhibit the recumbent statue or effigy, in the
treatment of which sculpture, leaning from its
first ideal, sought expressions of variety and in¬
dividuality which were the heralds of a change of
feeling.

But it must be understood that such divisions
do not mean separate schools or different stages
of attainment in figure-style, any more than they
do periods in the art. All these classes of sculp¬
ture came at the same time from the hands of
men engaged in the same craft. It will be seen
from our illustrations in this and the following
sections that the head-stop of the label has a
merit and style identical with what we see in
the relief-carving, and that statue, effigy, and
spandrel-figure reveal just the same artistic hand¬
ling. The distinctness of this simultaneous merit
in every department is no doubt symptomatic of
First Gothic art, when' the stone carver, after-
matching himself against the traditional handi¬
craft of the Romanesque goldsmith, went away
ahead of him in the exercise of his stone-craft,

English Mediaeval Figure-S culpture. 25

and established the style of Gothic sculpture.
So much seems clear : and that then this stone-
style affected the imager is probable. That the
latter began to take lessons from the stone-carver
maybe reasonably conjectured, though the almost
complete destruction of English image-work,
whether in metal, ivory, or wood, leaves us with
only indirect evidence for the fact. Still we
think it may be seen that by 1290 the gold¬
smith’s image by Master Torel at Westminster
is ideal, but no longer of the Byzantine ideal of
the earlier art. There has been a new inspiration
founded on the stone technique of the effigy-
carver. And in France, where both the architec¬
tural figures and wood and ivory images have come
down to us in a fairly continuous sequence, we
can, in fact, trace three stages in the art of the
latter. We can see that the ivories lagged for
some time behind the Gothic expression of the
stone statues, retaining for long Romanesque
conventions, and only towards the middle of the
thirteenth century adopted the superior motives
of the architectural figure. Not till the fourteenth
century did there develop again the imagers’
technique which went away from the motives of
stone sculpture. It is probable that the same,
course of events took place also in England,
and that it was in the fourteenth century that
the Gothic craft of image-making began again to
have its own patterns and motives of style apart
from the architectural carving of the building.

First Gothic figure-sculpture, therefore, is note¬
worthy for the fact that it was a simple, straight¬
forward art, grown up in the stone-carving of a
building. It owes to this its excellences, its
directness, and adaptability to position and
material. Thus it can be distinguished on the
one hand from its Romanesque predecessor,
whose technique began in copying the effects
of the shrine-modeller and goldsmith, and,
secondly, from the Mid-Gothic art, in which
variety of materials in stone-carving produced
effects which went away from the first ideal —
wood, metal, and alabaster each creating their
respective techniques, so that the motives of the
church-furnisher parted company with those of the
church-builder. We are treating our subject,
then, for convenience under separate headings :
but in expression of art, label-head and relief,
image and effigy will be taken as all one and
produced by one common inspiration.

SECTION (A).— LABEL-HEADS, CORBEL
FIGURE-SCULPTURE, AND OTHER
SMALL ARCHITECTURAL USES OF
THE FIGURE.

It has been already pointed out that when
Romanesque architecture passed into Gothic,

figure-sculpture was used in a new way. Old
schemes of decoration were discarded and new
evolved. And this re-arrangement of function
will be seen to be not one of mere caprice, but to
have its meaning in the very nature of the new
Gothic style. Our illustrations have shown how
in the Norman building pillar, capital, and arch¬
mould were on occasion thickly charged with
figure-motives. But the capital which (see Figs.
29, 30, 31, 32, in Chap. II.) had been frequently
made the vehicle for subject •• representations,
keeps this function no longer in Early English
art. Only in a subordinate way — as a quip or
byplay in the leaf-sculpture — does some head or
little figure (usually more or less of a grotesque)
appear in the design of the Gothic capital.45 So,
too, figure-compounded shafts such as we illus¬
trated from Kilpeek (Figs. 35, 37, Chap. II.) are
unknown in Gothic style in England, and though
less decisively, there is a similar rejection of the
figure-subject from the arch - mould. In the
elaboration of its great doorways, the later Nor¬
man art had made each voussoir a beak-head or
human mask or some figure-subject set in a medal¬
lion (Figs. 36, 48, 62, Chaps. II. and III.). The
continuity of the arch-stones was little regarded :
but in Early English art the structural emphasis of
the arch-line was insisted on with manifold lines of
mouldings, and we seldom find this effect inter¬
rupted. In the richer doorways, where we have
the traditions of Romanesque decoration con¬
tinued, and figure-subjects are ranged all round
the arches, they are usually intertwined in a
leafage which distinctly maintains the masonic
cohesion of the arch (see Figs. 78, 79).

Now we must recognise in all this no mere
shifting of a designer’s fancy, any more than any
impotence or lack of feeling as to figure-use in
decoration. It was rather that Gothic art, having
found its theme in the vertebrate expression of
stone building, refused to admit any discordant
phrase. A figure-subject makes a distinct de¬
mand upon the attention, and so becomes a stop
or focus of interest ; but Gothic implied a con¬
nective sculpture in pier, capital, and arch. No
subject-sculpture could be allowed to break the
supple rhythm of its building lines, because in
the anatomy of stone-building itself lay the vehicle
for sculpturesque expression.

For this reason there appears in the Transi¬
tional style of our Gothic a certain deliberate
rejection of the figure-motives of the Romanes¬
que ; a certain poverty compared with the rich
abundance of the later Norman sculpture; and a

45 The Font followed the capital : though often largely deco¬
rated with figure-subjects in Romanesque art (see Figs. 28, 49,
and 53 in Chaps. II., III.), it is plain in Early English, and only
after 1350 becomes charged again with figures.

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

scantiness in figure-work which is marked too
beside Continental usage. And this continues
till almost the middle of Henry III.’s reign. Our
first Gothic Cathedrals, e.g., the early quires
and chapels of Canterbury, Chichester, Win¬
chester, and Lincoln, as well as the whole range
of the north-country Early English buildings both
secular and monastic — e.g., Fountains, Ripon,
Beverley, Whitby, Rievaulx — if they have a
beauty of architecture, whose quality can be best
described as sculpturesque, yet get this out of
the nobility of the architectural masses, not by
the additions of sculpture. Figure-sculpture it¬
self finds hardly a place in the scheme of their
building. The capitals are largely plain, the
shafts unornamented, the arches mostly enriched
with moulding only : base, buttress, and pinnacle
owe their effect to their shapely contour and un¬
adorned constructional lines : the storied area-
dings of the stately fronts are contrived to admit
no statues : the doorheads, that in Norman style
were brimming over with figure-subjects, are now
mostly or entirely given up to geometrical or con¬
structional piercings. And even in the cases in
Early English art where stone-carving has been
abundant and rich, as in the nave of Lincoln
or the quire of Ely, first Gothic sculpture for
some eighty years in England clearly busied
itself mostly with foliage : with some few excep¬
tions figure-treatment was absent.

It is accepted indeed that the Cistercians as
reformers objected to the sumptuous use of sculp¬
ture which appeared in the later Benedictine
schools of decoration. Now it was in the
magnificent building of the Cistercians and of the
Regular (reformed) Canons that the early Gothic
style of England was largely conceived : their
churches set the fashion of masonry in which our
first Gothic was most often built. In the north
of England, there was much of this early archi¬
tecture of the reformed monastic societies, and
Cistercian and Augustinian churches were built,
as it were, in protest against Benedictine luxury.
Here the sculpture, if used at all, was merely em¬
ployed to emphasise constructional lines or points,
and, in the true Gothic spirit, the ornament con¬
sisted in the modelling of arch, column, and win¬
dow themselves, and not in any sculptured fretwork
applied to them. Thus, in the north of England,
we find scarcely a trace of figure-sculpture proper
till we reach the mid-thirteenth century.

In the West, however, and in the Midlands of
England there is certainly a difference in this
matter : figure-sculpture was less rigorously ex¬
cluded, though here too we can trace connec¬
tions between our first Gothic and the Augus¬
tinian and Cistercian buildings of Wales and
the Welsh marches. Perhaps in this district

there was a counter-influence to Cistercian au¬
sterity in the arts of the Cluniacs settled at Much
Weidock, as suggested in the last chapter. At
any rate in the birth of western Gothic not a
little figure-sculpture of capitals and arch-moulds
appears at Glastonbury and Wells, and the me¬
dallion motives, which Romanesque art had
created at Iffley and Malmesbury are continued
without break into the full Gothic style. If in
the treatment of Wells ( c . 1175) there is not that
exuberance with which the Norman carver strewed
his figure-work (compare for example the North
Porch of Wells with the South Porch of Malmes¬
bury),46 still in corbel, label-head, on boss and
capital, new occasions for the sculptor’s render¬
ing of human beauty and living form are multiplied.
And it is to be noted that this is all now in
accord with the principles of Gothic expression.
Corbels are by their functions excrescences and
the fresh starting points of construction. While
it may be said that pier, capital, and arch are as
connected chapters, the corbel comes like the
head-line of a news paragraph. Accordingly the
attention, which figure-sculpture attracts, gives
the fitting emphasis to the corbel. So, too, the
label-stop as the finish of the drip-mould ; the
boss as the centre of the vault ; the pinnacles, and
stops of the gable copings, and finally the gar¬
goyles or projecting spouts of the parapets, all
may have the expression of their constructive
functions helped by the interest that crystallises
round figure-representation. It was the appre¬
hension by the Gothic artist of these proper
opportunities for his skill with the chisel which
separates him essentially from the antecedent
Romanesque carver. The latter had continued
with increasing dexterity the pictorial representa¬
tions of classic tradition, but was without appre¬
ciation of the scope of sculpture or of its meaning
in architecture. But immediately that stone
building threw off the traditional methods of
Roman concrete, and the heat and fervour of
experiments in stone structure evolved distinct
Gothic forms of construction — which leant no
longer on the wisdom of the ancients, but stood
erect in their own right of science — then at once the
Gothic sculptor showed himself as an artist with
power of human feeling and a skill for its delinea¬
tion in stone, such as had lain dormant in the
human race for nearly a thousand years.

So the expression of the human face became
his instrument, upon which he was to play in
many keys. The number of heads carved as

4C At Wells the relief panels on the porch-front and the martyr¬
dom of St. Edmond (see Fig. 82a) on the capitals are more foliage
than figure. Inside there are label-heads and dragon-stops, but no
great figure-subjects, as at Malmesbury, sit at the side of the
porch, nor is there any tympanum sculpture of doorhead.

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture. 27

corbels and string stops in a mid-thirteenth-cen¬
tury church was almost endless. Destructions,
determined and continuous, have been effacing
them for six hundred years, but they still remain
to us by the thousand, and the fine quality,
vivacity, and variety of their treatment are aston¬
ishing. In neiriy all instances 47 they are formed
of the same stone as the architectural mouldings
in connection with them. Usually they must
have been fixed in position along with the ashlar
of the wall, and it is likely they were worked in
the banker-shed along with the wall-stones, for
thirteenth-century miniatures in manuscripts 48
show the carved work being dressed before fixing,
and side by side with the facing stones. It is, of
course, possible that in some cases the carving
was from the scaffold, the block being built in
rough, as is so usually done in the case of modern
carving. But that they were left so intentionally
for any time, and then carved as money came to
pay the sculptor (our modern habit) is a theory
which no evidence has yet been produced to
justify. Indeed, we find very often in a series
of heads here and there capricious substitu¬
tions of foliage, whose date is manifestly that
of the walling around ; so that we must conclude
that the whole was sculptured simultaneously,
for there would seem to be no reason for carving
some blocks with foliage and leaving others to be
worked later. In certain cases head-stops (as in
Salisbury Chapter-house) appear not to be built
into the masonry, but to be face-blocks fastened
in by a dowel behind, and in such cases after¬
carving was plainly possible. Still there can be
little doubt that in most of the head-carvings of
corbels and label-stops we have works contem¬
porary with the architecture in which they occur.

47 The Purbeck heads to be presently mentioned, and one or
two of fine stone (either Bath or Caen) let into Douiting labels
on the inside of the West front of Wells are the exceptions
known to us.

48 For example see British Museum M.S. Cott. Nero. D.i.

FIG. 63. — BRIDLINGTON.
Head in Cloister.

FIG. 64. — LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL.

Vault-corbel in north transept.

Thus they make a continuous record of head-
sculpture which takes us from the earliest Gothic
carving to the latest.

This head-sculpture appears at first to be some¬
what more advanced than the contemporary re¬
presentation of the figure. The Norman masks,
such as those of the corbel-table (see Fig. 33,
Chap. II.), cease after 1150 to be merely horrible,
and in some instances, especially in doorways (see
Fig. 48, Chap. III.), attain no little shapeliness.
Thus, in the Ely cloister, side by side with the
bull’s-eyed blocks on the Monks’ and Prior’s door¬
ways (see Fig. 54, Chap. III.) a head set in the
label of another doorway which by its ornament
seems contemporary, is of effective and pleasant
modelling. Heads of a somewhat similar kind
may be seen in similar position in the nave arcades
of Wimborne Minster and elsewhere, our illustra¬
tion (Fig. 63) showing one from the beautiful
Romanesque cloister of the Bridlington Angus
tinians, which has the character of those of the
Lincoln reliefs (see Figs. 44 and 46, Chap. III.).
The date of all these may be about 1150.

By 1175, in the works of Transitional Gothic,
examples of growing skill become frequent, as can
be seen in the Ely west front.43 Heads at Oak¬
ham Hall, Rutland; a vault-corbel in the south
transept of Hedon Church, Yorkshire ; two in
the north transept of St. Cross, Winchester ;
and two in the north transept 50 of Lichfield
Cathedral (Fig. 64) are Gothic works which show
the hard, vigorous execution of a new school of
sculpture. Earlier in date and more elementary
in modelling are the specimens in the south quire-
aisle of St. Frideswide’s (the Cathedral), Oxford,
and in the north porch of Wells Cathedral.

As has been already said, it was this western

49 In the Temple Church, London, the heads of the 1180 wall-
arcade have been completely renewed or touched up, in a resto¬
ration (c. 1840) whose appreciation of Mediaeval art was that
which gave us the “ Ingoldsby Legends.”

50 Only on the east side in the north bay are they of the first
Gothic quire-work ; the rest have been restored.

English Mediaval Figure-Sculpture.

A. G.

B A. G.

(A) Vault-corbel, south transept.

(B) Label-head, nave (east bay).

FIG. 65. — WELLS CATHEDRAL.

cathedral which began at once to develop Gothic
figure-sculpture in various directions. The figure-
capitals of Wells will be dealt with presently :
here we show heads ; some from capitals, but
chiefly a series of corbel and label-heads from the
triforium arcades, which have that variety of type
which is symptomatic of a period when the hand
of the artist was experimenting with ideas, and
hardly yet able to express them. The earliest
heads here are those of the transepts and eastern
bays of the nave ; they are stiffly set upon stunted
shoulders, and may be taken as carved before
1200. In expression our illustrations (Fig. 65)
may be compared with the Daniel head .at
Lincoln (Fig. 41, Chap. III.). But the types are
various : we have in one the blunt scowl of
ascetic severity (Fig. 65 a) ; in another the archaic
grin, which is so singularly like that of early Greek
art (Fig. 65 b) ; in a third a maenadic expression of
ecstasy (Fig. 65 c), which occurs again and again in
connection with the peculiar snaky foliages of the
capitals at Llandaff (Fig. 66 a) as here in Wells
Cathedral, and in the church of St. Mary's,
Shrewsbury. There are proofs, therefore, in
sculpture, as in architectural treatment, of a dis-

Head in Capital of Nave.

tinct western local school of art, working in its
own stone and developing Gothic on its own
lines,51 at Llandaff, Shrewsbury, and Lichfield, in

A. G.

FIG. 66. — (B) WELLS CATHEDRAL.

Label-head in west bays of nave, north side.

the sandstone; at Wells and Glastonbury in the
local Doulting stone.

The west bays of the Wells nave, which are
clearly later in date than those to the east, have
label-stops and corbels with a larger type of head¬
carving, and of a smoother style (Fig. 66 b).
Contemporary with these bays would come the
beginning of the new cathedral at Salisbury,
whose foundation stone was laid in 1220. We see
there a succession of head-sculptures in white
Tisbury stone begun probably about 1225, carried
on through the whole building of the cathedral,
and advancing step by step to the 1260 master¬
pieces of the chapter-house and quire screen.
The earliest of the series would be in the triforium
arcades of the quire and its transept ; and next
those in the main transept and eastern bays of the
nave (Figs. 67 A, B, c). As in the heads just men¬
tioned at Wells, advances are to be seen here
on the earlier archaic types of Gothic art. While
still mannered and dry, there is a rounder treat-

51 See the author’s “ History of Gothic Art in England,"
pp. 156, 157.

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture.

A A. G.

(A) Corbel-head, east bays of nave.

B A. G.

(B) Corbel-head in south-east transept.
FIG. 6/. — SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.

C A. G.

A A.g.
FIG. 69.

Figs.

FIG. 68.

A.G.

FIG. 68.

(A and B) — Corbel-heads in quire. Figs. 69 (A and B) — Label-heads in quire.
BOXGROVE PRIORY CHURCH.

B A.
FIG. 6q.

A A.G.

ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL.

(A) Corbel-head in quire.

B A.G. C A.G.

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.

(B) Corbel-head, east transept. (C) Corbel head, main transept.

FIG. 70. — PURBECK SCULPTURF.

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture

A - A. G.

WELLS CATHEDRAL.

Label-head west bays of nave.

B A.G.

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.

Corbel-head west bays of nave.

E A. G.

SALISBURY CHAPTER.

Label-head of wall arcade.

C A. G.

WESTMINSTER CHAPTER.

D A. G.

WESTMINSTER CHAPTER.

Label-heads of wall arcade.

SALISBURY CHAPTER.
Label-head of wall arcade.

I A. G.

DURHAM QUIRE.
Corbel-head.

H A. G.

SALISBURY QUIRE SCREEN.
Label-head of arcade.

G A. G.

SALISBURY CHAPTER.
Label-head of wall arcade.

FIG. 71.— HEADS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture .

ment of feature, and less harshness of expression.
Almost contemporary must have been the strik¬
ing Caen-stone corbels of Boxgrove (Figs. 68, 69)
near Chichester, which show perhaps a greater
archaism (the features being simply worked out
in planes and the hair stiffly rendered in tight
curls) but in their breadth of feature and no¬
bility of expression we have an earnest of the best
Gothic achievements of head-sculpture.

In all the above the heads are of the stone of the
walling : moreover we can trace in each instance,
at Lichfield, at Wells, at Salisbury, and at Box-
grove, a progress in technique from inexpert
beginnings. This implies in each place a local
development of craft. Yet at Salisbury and else¬
where there are heads which must be kept dis¬
tinct from these local free-stone carvings. We
find head-corbels of Purbeck marble, which there
is reason to suspect were carved at Corfe, in
Dorset, and supplied ready worked to the churches.
The vault-corbels (Fig. 70 a) of Rochester quire
(C. 1220) and certain heads (Fig. 70 b, c) at Salis¬
bury (those which in the great transept and in the
eastern transept come lowest in the walls, and
would therefore be built in before the triforium
labels) are fine examples of Purbeck art. Their
execution suggests a strangely developed capacity
in the Dorset quarryman,52 and that his craft-

52 Quarrerii is used in the accounts of the Eleanor Crosses,
1291, for the Corfe masons when they were supplying worked
Purbeck marble in quantities.

A. G.

FIG. 72. — LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
Label-head in "Angel Choir.”

skill gave an impetus to the free-stone carver
both at Salisbury and Boxgrove. The Purbeck
heads at Salisbury are bold in design, and deeply
cut so as to allow them to be seen from below in
spite of their dark colour — for possibly they were
not painted.53 The nature of the material no
doubt contributed to the style, and since at Box¬
grove there is a large quantity of Purbeck pillar-
work, we may think the flat-sided, deep cutting of
the Caen-stone heads (see Fig. 68) imitated from
it. The solution of this question will, however,
be attempted more fully when we come to the
discussion of the Purbeck effigies.

The latest or western bays of Salisbury nave,
like those of Wells, have heads in white stone on
a scale of importance, and of an execution which
bring them within touch of the best period
(Fig. 71 a and b). From 1250 onwards we may
gather from all parts of England proofs of an extra¬
ordinary ability developed in the mediaeval stone-
sculpture. The specimens we illustrate (Fig. 71)
are drawn from Westminster chapter - house
(c and d), from Salisbury chapter-house (e, f
and g), from the quire screen (h), and from
Durham quire (1). Also we give an example
from the “ Angel Choir ” at Lincoln (Fig. 72).
In each cathedral the working has been in a
different stone — that of the local building — a
fact which can leave us with scarcely a doubt
that in each case we have workmanship of
the local masons. We may thus appreciate
the wide amount of artistic talent that was
at hand for the purpose of mediaeval architec¬
ture.

It is unnecessary to point out the great advance
of the execution over what had been done twenty
years earlier. There is, moreover, in these heads,
apart from the workmanship, a delicacy of senti¬
ment which strikes us as specially English be¬
side the robuster, fuller types of French sculp¬
ture. This is apart from the fact that head-stops
and head-corbels are rare in continental Gothic,
as rare,54 indeed, as the interior label-strings, to
which our examples are mostly attached. But it
would be out of place to enter here into any com¬
parison of English work with the sculpture
abroad. Recognising that our label-heads are in
style, as in stone, local, we can see variety of style
everywhere, yet in all a level of attainment that is
wonderfully kept up : and this art, though its
best-preserved examples are now found in our
larger churches, was exhibited in the smaller
parish churches also, where remoteness and the

5:i At Rochester, however, the Purbeck has been at some
period painted.

44 Head-corbels are found in the early Gothic of Maine and
Anjou. The triforium of the church of Semur, near Auxerre,
has heads in its arcade much as in England.

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

A. G.

FIG. 76. — WELLS CATHEDRAL.

Vault-corbel in north transept.

carving of C. 1260, and the grotesque there will
be presently mentioned ; here the corbel-head
and base spurs (Fig. 73) will indicate that this
island had its thirteenth-century carver, whose
place was no mean one in the history of our
sculpture.

It has been suggested that the excellence in the
head was generally in advance of that of body-
representation. In some corbels an attempt was
made to introduce a good deal of the figure, and
there is not uncommonly a contortion of attitude
due to inexperience rather than intentionally
grotesque. We illustrate this from the Oxford
chapter-house of C. 1220 (Fig. 74), but it can be
seen, too, in the Durham quire of C. 1260, and even
in the beautiful figure we show (Fig. 75) from the
staircase to the Wells chapter-house, also C. 1260. 55
The earlier corbel (Fig. 7 6) from the north tran¬
sept of Wells is free and graceful, but we must
go to Crowland and Lincoln and to a date pos¬
sibly beyond 1270 for a well-constructed and
satisfactory use of the figure-motive in archi-

A. G.

FIG. 73. — HAYLING CHURCH (NEAR PORTSMOUTH).
Spur of base.

The corresponding corbel on the other side of the staircase
is less powerful.

FIG. 77. — LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL.
Arch-mould to north transept doorway.

FIG. 74. — OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
Vault-corbel in chapter-house.

FIG. 75. — WELLS CATHEDRAL.

Vault-corbel in passage to chapter-house.

manner of building often necessitated the employ¬
ment of local talent. For example, at Hayling we
have specimens of a fine and peculiar Caen-stone

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

A. G.

FIG. 78. — LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
South doorway of “ Angel Choir.”

A. G.

FIG. 79. — WESTMINSTER CHAPTER HOUSE.

Moulding of doorway.

VOL. XIII. — C

tectural support. Once achieved, this regular
pattern of angel bracket continued till the end
of Gothic sculpture.

The introduction of the figure into the arch¬
mould made an equal difficulty for architectural
sculpture. Abroad we get an attached series of
brackets, applied to the voussoirs, and making
canopied niches for the statues. The simpli¬
city and boldness with which this is done in the
great doorways of Paris, Amiens, and Reims, and
the fine scale of the whole, disguise, if they do not
atone for, the awkwardness of the positions which
are so given to the figures. In England, however,
as far as we know (for many of our doorways have
perished), this method did not find favour in our
thirteenth century. The tradition here descended
from the medallion arch-moulds of late Norman
work, such as those of Barfreston and Malmes¬
bury (see Figs. 61 and 62 in Chap. III.), where in
a connected trellis of arabesque each voussoir
shows a figure subject. In mid-thirteenth century
certain rich doorways, as in the west front of
Dunstable and in the transepts of Lichfield, seem
to revive this tradition. The arch-moulds of the
transept door on the north side of Lichfield are
sufficiently preserved to allow us to Illustrate its
sandstone figure-carvings (Fig. 77) which are set
in the outer and inner orders of the arch, while be¬
tween them the midway order is enriched with
carving, but without figures. A similar arrangement
of orders is seen in the more magnificent doorway
on the south side of the so-called “Angel Choir” of
Lincoln. The inner order of door-arch is carved
with elegant seated figures in niches, which are,
however, so set into the profile of the arch-mould
that they do not break its contour. The outer
order (Fig. 78) has in similar fashion little figures
of about three-quarter length standing in the
hollows of the leaf enrichment, and these tiny
works of stone sculpture show all the naivete and
grace of the modelled terra-cottas that have been
found at Tanagra. The chapter-house doorways
of Westminster and Salisbury have also moulds
in which are figure-carvings. At Westminster
(Fig. 79) leaf and figure twine together : at Salis¬
bury (Fig. 80) are to be seen the Virtues trampling
on the Vices, and though each is set in a niche,
the projection is kept within the curve of the arch¬
mould and does not break its lines. In attitude
and action these little figures may compete with
the Lincoln examples for delicate grace.

The figure-work of Gothic capitals, however, can
stand on no such level, for, as has been indicated,
it was only a caprice of the carving art. It never
made itself of serious import, or achieved anything
much beyond the success of a grotesque. Still,
as a step in the progress of Gothic design, the
figure-capital comes in place. Romanesque art
had made picture-capitals in illustration of sacred

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture

A A.G.

WELLS CATHEDRAL, NORTH PORCH.

The Martyrdom of St Edmund.

B A. G.

WELLS, SOUTH TRANSEPT.

In west aisle.

C A.G.

WELLS NAVE.

In north aisle east bay.

DURHAM QUIRE.

In triforium north side.

LINCOLN.

Corbel in south-east transept.

F A.G.

LICHFIELD CHAPTER.

Capital of wall arcade.

FIG. 81. — FIGURE CAPITALS OF THE FIRST GOTHIC PERIOD.

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture .

A. G.

FIG. 8o. — SALISBURY CHAPTER-HOUSE.

Moulding~of doorway, “The Virtues and Vices.”

story, and some of its first sculpture was the
transfer of painted representation to carving. But
as the capital grew smaller, the space allowed only
the slighter scenes of symbolic figure-work (see
Figs. 31 and 32 in Chap. II.), and so thirteenth-
century art took it up. The solemnities of reli¬
gious feeling were the theme and inspiration of
statue and relief ; but the capital was issued by
the sculptor as his brochure, or rather novelette.
Its aim was to give little stories of everyday life,
or fables from the Bestiaries, or the Books of

A.G.

FIG. 82. — -LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.

Capital of door£in south quire aisle.

beasts, which represented mediaeval natural his¬
tory. At Wells, nave and transept have in their
capitals (F igs. 81 A, B, and c) quite a library of such
novelettes ; but we illustrate examples also from
Lincoln (Figs. 81 e and 82), Lichfield (f), and
Durham (d). This role of the story-teller passed
on to the wood-carving of the latter part of the
century, particularly to the miserere carvings of
stalls, which we shall illustrate in their place.

The execution of these relief-carvings in the
capital is generally slight and summary. They
must be judged on the plane of their intention,
and are really part of that reaction from serious¬
ness, that by-play of mockery, which in the Feasts
of Fools, of Asses and such like, made buffoonery
and grotesque a diversion of religion. And before
leaving these lesser exhibitions of First Gothic
figure-art, we should say a word on the thirteenth-
century grotesque. Mediaeval sculpture was
throughout markedly impressed by that back-cur-
rent of art which, running counter to the ordinary
motives of human beauty, introduces expressions
of terror and contortion, aspects often indecorous
and vulgar, dragons and monstrosities, or the
strange lessons which magic and mysticism drew
from animal life, a development whose significance
has been discussed in Ruskin’s “ Stones of Venice.”
The various expressions of grotesque certainly make
a considerable feature in the whole sum of Gothic
church-sculpture. A later chapter will therefore
be specially devoted to it. Here we illustrate
(Fig. 83) some examples which, belonging to the
First Gothic sculpture, seem to carry with them
the fine style of thirteenth-century art. The
dragon from Lincoln (a) is dignified. And if such
representations as those on the base of the door-
shaft at Peterborough seem merely horrible, and
in part a legacy from the truculent fancies of
Norse heathendom ; if the devilry of such a face
as that of the Oxford chapter-house (b) ; or of the
Lincoln imps ; or of the Hayling head (d), is
simply unclean and disgusting, still not a few of
such thirteenth-century fancies (as for example the
gargoyles at Chichester (f) and those two or three
of 1240 on the south side of Ely quire) have with
all their monstrosity and contortion a nobility of
line and a statuesque breadth of treatment which
rank them beside the great works of sculpture.
In the little dragons and salamanders which at
Wells (Fig. 83 e), Chichester (Fig. 83 g), and
Hayling writhe and twine among the foliage, we
have often the suggestion of animal movement,
and the lithe beauty of it such as we look for
in the naturalistic art of to-day.

E. S. Prior and A. Gardner.

Note. — Illustrations Nos. 64. 74, 75, 77, 8ie, and 83b are from
photographs kindly lent by S. Gardner, Esq.. Nos. 63 and 66a
are from casts in the Royal Architectural Museum, Westminster.

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

A A. G.

LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.

Dragon on plinth, north side.

C A. G.

HAYLING CHURCH.

Spur of base.

E A . G.

WELLS CATHEDRAL.

Corbel in north transept.

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
Corbel in chapter house.

HAYLING CHURCH.
Capital of font shaft.

F A. G.

CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL.
Gargoyle on north side of nave.

G A. G.

CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL.
North quire aisle.

PIG. 83.— GROTESQUES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

Architecture and the Royal Academy.

A DISCUSSION.— IV.

BY PROFESSOR F. M. SIMPSON.

The discussion on “Architecture and the
Royal Academy ” has suggested to me that a
brief account of an exhibition held in the
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in the spring of
1895, may be of some interest, as it was arranged
somewhat on the lines indicated by Mr. Ricardo
in his article, and endorsed by Mr. Belcher. It
was an Arts and Crafts Exhibition, and one room,
70 ft. by 35 ft., was devoted entirely to Architec¬
ture. In the circular sent out to architects, it
was stated that the following were admissible : —
(1) Drawings to scale, plans, elevations, sections,
&c., either mounted on stretchers, or framed and
glazed ; (2) photographs of executed work, if ac¬
companied by a plan or explanatory drawing;
(3) perspectives, either mounted or framed, if
accompanied by a plan ; (4) measured drawings
and sketches of old work. The wall space
allotted to each exhibitor was 30 sq. ft., but in
some instances permission was given to exceed
this. As a result 180 exhibits were hung, repre¬
senting about 60 architects. The dimensions of
the room allowed drawings of considerable size to
be shown, and amongst them were many half¬
inch scale working drawings. Each man’s work
was hung together, no matter what it consisted
of, and the effect was not bad, and by no means
so motley as might have been expected.

The point of interest, however, is not so much
that the exhibition was held, as how it was re¬
ceived. I may at once frankly state that finan¬
cially it was not a success ; but otherwise I think
one may fairly claim that it was. The interest it
aroused was considerable, not only amongst archi¬
tects, who warmly expressed their satisfaction with
the experiment, but also amongst those of the gene¬
ral public who came to see it. The feeling of the
latter was that the drawings shown meant “ busi-
nes ” ; that there was no humbug about them, no
make-believe ; that they didn’t pretend to be any¬
thing but what they were ; that they were honest
representations of a man’s work. With this was
coupled the sensation that it was pleasant to get
a bit “ behind the scenes ” and see how things
were done. As one man said to me, “ I like the
exhibition, although I don’t understand all of it ;

I like it because it is a practical exhibition of a
practical art.” This remark is not surprising
when it is remembered that men who interest
themselves in public affairs often have to deal
with plans, and understand them better than
architects sometimes imagine. They may not be
able to grasp fully the architectural beauty of a
plan or section ; that requires a trained imagina¬
tion ; but I deny that such drawings do not interest

them. Of course, many people are not interested
in them, neither are they in the exhibitions at
Burlington House. Equally true is it that there
will never be the same enthusiasm over an exhi¬
bition of architectural drawings as over a picture
exhibition. Apart from the fact that architecture
has not so many admirers as painting, our ex¬
hibits are not the real thing, no matter whether
they consist of models, perspectives, or working
drawings. But although we cannot have the real
thing in a gallery, no strong reason exists why we
should not try to get as near to it as possible ;
and a photograph supplemented by a plan and
detail drawing will give one an insight into a de¬
sign, which no perspective, whether prepared in
or out of an office, can convey.

Another point I should like to mention, which
I fancy has not been touched upon before. An
architectural exhibition conducted on practical
lines can, I think, do a lot of good to builders,
foremen, clerks of works, and workmen generally.
The exhibition at Liverpool was thoroughly ap¬
preciated by many of these. Every evening
several were to be found in the gallery studying,
admiring, criticising the drawings. Of course,
admission was free, but if such an exhibition as
has been suggested could be held at the Academy,
or elsewhere, one evening a week might well be
set apart when the entrance fee could be small.
Four men paying threepence each bring as much
money as one man who pays a shilling, so it by
no means follows that a reduced fee means less
gate-money. More than that, I should like to see
the masters of technical schools allotted a num¬
ber of free admission tickets for students. If the
exhibition were held in the Academy, and the
Council of that body decided that they could not
afford to grant any free admissions, a few pounds
spent on tickets by the London County Council,
the Carpenters’ Company, and other bodies, for
the benefit of their students, would not be thrown
away.

But that has nothing to do with this discussion.
I write merely to show that an architectural exhi¬
bition arranged on different lines from that of the
Academy has, at least once, been held in England,
and that it aroused considerable interest amongst
architects, workmen, and some of the general
public.

One more word. As our true exhibitions are
held in the streets, why not have them catalogued?
A board hung on each lamp-post giving the num¬
bers of the houses and the names of their archi¬
tects may be regarded as a suggestion pour rire,
but it would at least enable us, as we walked
through our towns, to know whom to bless and
whom to curse, and no one would be likely to
lodge a complaint that he had been pilloried !

Current A rchitecture.

FROM THE SOUTH. Photo : A. E. Cockerell.

FROM THE NORTH-WEST.

Photo: A. E. Cockerell.

“WESTBROOK,” GODALMING.

BALFOUR AND TURNER, ARCHITECTS.

Current A rchitecture.

Current Architecture.

“ Westbrook,” Godalming. — The plan of
this house was partly governed by a desire to
obtain the view of the town to the east for both
the dining-room and the drawing-room without
making external bay windows. The external
walls are of Bargate stone with a half-brick
lining, and are just under 2 ft. thick. The internal
walls are of brick. The stone was obtained on
the site and used with its natural face, irregular¬
ities being filled in with mortar in a similar way
to Devon and Somerset buildings. Doulting
stone was used for window and other dressings,

and the windows have gun-metal casements and
lead lights filled with Crown glass. The floors
are of stone and cement concrete, with a finishing
of coke breeze concrete to which Oregon pine
boards averaging about 16 in. wide are nailed.
The chief staircase is of English oak with solid
steps; the hall is panelled with the same wood.
The drawing-room is panelled in deal painted
white, and has an Austrian oak floor carried on
deal joists, for dancing. The roof is covered with
old hand-made tiles on in. vertical deal boarding.
The architects were Messrs. Balfour and Turner.

Current A rchitecture.

«LC.lw£E'

%fm li#
*: 4 -/ » » ^ aH

“WESTBROOK,” GODALMING. GARDEN FRONT.
BALFOUR AND TURNER, ARCHITECTS.

Current A rchitecture.

THE LONDON AND COUNTY BANK, WANDSWORTH, PLANS.
MESSRS. CHESTON AND PERKIN, ARCHITECTS.

New Premises for the London and
County Banking Company, Limited, Wands¬
worth, S.W. — These premises, which have re¬
cently been completed and opened for business,
occupy a prominent position in the High Street,
near to the parish church. The illustrations suffi¬
ciently explain the general arrangement, style, and
purpose of the building. Above the strong-rooms,
etc., in the rear, is arranged a residence for the
caretaker, with a private entrance in the side
road. The banking hall is 19 feet in height, and is
amply lighted by the large front and side windows,
and clerestory windows above the roofs of the
manager’s and inspector’s rooms respectively at
either side. Accommodation is provided for four
cashiers and thirteen clerks, in addition to the
manager. The floors of the offices are paved with
pitch-pine blocks, and the public space with
Roman mosaic paving. The panelled and deco¬
rated ceiling of the banking hall is in fibrous
plaster. The joinery generally and the office
fittings are in American walnut, and have been
specially designed by the architects in keeping
with the style of the building. The strong-rooms
are faced internally with white glazed bricks.
The offices are warmed by means of hot-air
stoves, and lighted artificially by electric light.
Gas is also laid on throughout. A natural system
of ventilation has been adopted by means of

Tobin fresh-air inlets, fitted with filters and
regulating valves, foul-air extractors being pro¬
vided near the ceilings. Two sunburners are also
provided in the banking hall to assist in the
extraction of vitiated air, and also to light the
office in the event of a temporary breakdown or
failure of the electric light. Externally the
buildings are faced generally with Ancaster stone,
the plinths, pediments, cills, string courses, cor¬
nice and balustrade above, being of Portland
stone from the Whitbed. The work was carried
out by Messrs. Higgs and Hill, builders, and
the architects are Messrs. Cheston and Perkin.

Books.

Photo: E. Dockree.

THE LONDON AND COUNTY BANK, WANDSWORTH.
MESSRS. CHESTON AND PERKIN, ARCHITECTS. .

Books.

Manuel d’archeologie fran¬
chise.

C. Enlart : Manuel d' Archeologie Frangaise, depuis les temps
m^rovingiens jusqu’a la Renaissance. Premiere partie : Archi¬
tecture, Tome I. : Architecture religieuse. xxand8i6pp. 405
illustrations. 8vo. Paris (A. Picard et fils.) 15 frcs.

This “Manual of French Archaeology” is to
appear in two parts : the first devoted to Architecture ;
the second to Sculpture, Painting, and Applied Art.
The volume now under review is the first of Part I. ;
the second, which will complete the part, deals with
Civil and Military Architecture (including Monastic),
and is in the press.

Few can write with authority on so vast a subject.
M. Mohnier was at first asked to undertake the work, »
but he could not accept the invitation. The name of
M. Enlart is not yet so well known in England, but

he is well qualified for his task. Trained at the
“Ecole des Chartes ” and at the “Ecole Francaise
de Rome,” he has since written important books on
Romanesque Architecture in Picardy, and Gothic
Architecture in Italy and Cyprus ; besides a number
of smaller works. He has, as “ Professeur suppleant,”
occupied the chairs of French Archaeology at the
“ Ecole des Chartes ” and at the Louvre, and has
delivered a course of lectures on the same subject at
the University of Geneva. In his preface, he states
that he has found the collection and co-ordination of
materials for his lectures the best possible preparation
for this work. As to this particular volume, he
claims to have visited every country, and nearly every
. building, referred to therein.

The book begins, not with a bald glossary, but with
an interesting description of the constituent parts of a

Books.

building, and of the details and ornaments belonging
to each. When technical terms occur, Latin, Low
Latin, Old French, and Provencal equivalents are
often given with them. Then follows a chapter
on proportions and general character, in which
M. Enlart comes forward as an apologist for
the Gothic style. He considers Gothic ornament
natural in scale, and excellent in that it is so
exactly adapted to the masonry to which it is
applied. Deviations in axis and irregularities of
construction may be compared with similar absences
of mechanical exactness in Nature, and it is pointed
out that some of these irregularities are intentional
and reasonable, as when a church is left without
windows on the side facing the mistral or sea gales.
An especial warning is given against reading symbolic
meanings into results of inaccuracy or carelessness.

An interesting chapter on the life of artists in the
Middle Ages includes some striking instances of
architects travelling far in connection with their
work. An ambassador from St. Louis met one as
far away as China, in a.d. 1253. There are given,
also, details as to architects’ emoluments and the
contracts that bound them. We are met at once
with the fact that individual copyright did not exist.
It must not be inferred from this, that architects did
not put a high value on themselves and their works,
any more than from the fewness of the great names
that have been preserved. This fewness is due to
the destruction of so many inscriptions and records,
rather than to modesty on their part. Instead of
copyright there was a guild monopoly, and the guild
was a very close one, which guarded its secrets well.

Other chapters of general character, and general
interest, deal with funds available for building during
the period with which the book deals, the transport
of materials, their re-employment, copying and
archaism, changes, and restorations, the reasons for
analogies between different countries and districts,
and the relative value (so often discussed before) of
architectural and documentary evidence. Warnings
are given as to some pitfalls likely to entrap the
inexperienced and unwary when studying texts.

After this introductory section come five others, de¬
voted to the five great periods of French Architec¬
ture, viz. — (1) Roman and Merovingian; (2) Carlov-
ingian, including the baptisteries ; (3) Romanesque ;
(4) Gothic ; (5) Renaissance, till the final disappear¬
ance of all Gothic feeling and forms. Each section
begins with a study of the origins of the style of
the period with which it deals, and of its general
character. It then details the development of the
building as a whole, and of its parts and ornaments
during the time. The main schools of each period
are indicated, but no attempt is made to define
their exact boundaries. This cannot yet, and per¬
haps never can, be done, the overlapping and inter¬
penetration of styles was so great. If they are ever
defined, Mr. Enlart is convinced that they will follow
the limits of provinces or lordships rather than of
dioceses ; it was vassalage that kept artists, as other
folk, tied to particular lands. Great attention is also

paid to the spread of French styles to other lands,
but M. Enlart does not exaggerate France’s supre¬
macy even in the Gothic period. It is plain, for
example, that he recognises the great independence
of the development of English Gothic, though he
points out that our Norman style is the same thing
as the Romanesque of the duchy, and can trace
influences from the schools of Champagne (William of
Sens) and Anjou, as well as Normandy, in the Gothic
period. He considers it especially worthy of re¬
mark that the Cistercians, who did so much to
spread French Gothic abroad on the Continent,
built so little (he cites only Roche and Fountains
Abbeys) in that style here. Mr. Bilson’s paper on
the beginnings of Gothic* is discussed, but it is de¬
cided that the locality of the first ribbed vault cannot
yet be definitely settled. English work in France
itself is referred to, and England receives the credit
of having taught Norway its Norman architecture,
and Gothic as well. In Sweden, this English Gothic
met French, brought thither, in 1287, by Etienne de
Bonneval and his fellows, who were commissioned to
build a cathedral at Upsala on the model of the Paris
cathedral of Notre Dame.

To the Renaissance, little space is devoted as
compared with that given to the two preceding
styles, but a good account is given of its introduc¬
tion into, and development in France, with a list,
accompanied by short notices, of the chief workers
in the style there.

The book ends with a chapter on accessories of
ecclesiastical architecture, such as pavements, altars,
tabernacles, fonts, screens, and pulpits. These are
dealt with here, rather than in Part II., for two
reasons, viz. — (1) that they are often part of the
masonry, and (2) that they are so important liturgi-
cally, that a complete idea of an ecclesiastical build¬
ing cannot be obtained without considering them.
Stained glass is, however, left with Painting and
Sculpture for the Second Part.

The work is written in an interesting style, and
every point' in it is illustrated by copious references
to examples. Each section is followed both by a
bibliography, and by a list of buildings, classified
according to departments. These lists will make
the manual especially valuable to those who like to
spend “holidays among the glories of France.”

The illustrations include half-tone plates from the
excellent photographs of the “ Commission des
Monuments Historiques,” and from others by the
author, and reproductions of pen drawings, of vary¬
ing merit as such, but generally good, and always
well chosen to explain the points in connection with
which they are introduced.

The book is worthy to become, as its originators
wish that it should, the standard manual on the
subject of which it treats.

G. H. Palmer.

* “ Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects,” 1899
and 1902.

Books.

The pavement masters of siena

(1369-1562).

“ The Pavement Masters of Siena (1369-1562).” By Robert
H. Hobart Cust, M.A., Magdalen College, Oxford. Handbooks
of the Great Craftsmen. Edited by G. C. Williamson, Litt. D.
Price, 5s. net. London : Geo. Bell & Sons.

The history of the pavement of the Cathedral
of Siena covers the years from about 1350 to our own
day. The greater part — particularly those portions
anterior to the sixteenth century — has been lately
almost entirely renewed by copying the original panels
both in materials and method of workmanship; and is
chiefly valuable to us now as a copy of the greatest
church pavement of the Renaissance, magnificently
typical of Italian art of that time; so typical, indeed,
that had we but little else to go upon, it would not be
impossible to construct a theory of the manner of
that art in other directions.

A pavement has always played an important part
in architecture. The older literature and legends of
the East — -the first home of art — tell us with much
particularity of the pavements in actual buildings, and
in story. To portray or to symbolise the mysteries of
the heavenly bodies, the waters of heaven and of the
earth beneath, the chief natural changes of the year,
on the floors of their temples and buildings of import¬
ance was a favourite custom of the early builders.
Pausanias describes the polished marble floor like
unto a lake of black water, before the great ivory
statue of Zeus in the Temple of Olympia, which
reflected the figure and lighted lamps, as it were in
the sea of heaven. In Roman pavements and later
in those of Byzantine time and influence, as in Sta.
Sophia and St. Mark’s, the idea of water, the “ glassy
sea,” can be seen typified. This symbolism travelled
westwards with the knowledge of eastern art, and
Gothic cathedrals in Italy and the north give us pave¬
ments adorned with representations of the four rivers
of paradise, the zodiac, the seasons, or the labyrinth,
mysteries bound up with the lives of men.

But the pavement of Siena strikes a different note.
Except for a compartment of the nave floor illustrating
a wheel, which we may conceive to be a survival of a
labyrinth, and some noble representations of the
virtues, which are among the earliest work (presumably
executed between 1350 and 1400) now remaining in
the Church, there is little to suggest the earlier Gothic
pavements. We find the subjects of the panels of
the floor to be scenes of classical allegory, and — in
greater numbers — pictorial representations of biblical
events. Strong as these works are in perfection of
“ line ” drawing, as for example in the fine series of
sibyls in the north and south aisles ; and in greatness
in design, as in the “ Allegory of Fortune” by Pinturic-
chio, the pavement suffers in part through its extra¬
ordinary pictorial quality. “ The Expulsion of Herod,”
for instance, a vast subject picture crowded with
figures recalls an early Italian battle piece. In the
“ Massacre of the Innocents ” we think of the arrange¬
ment of Botticelli’s “ Calumny.”

If the object of a pavement is to represent subjects
in marble or stone inlay, which we are accustomed to

see treated with great success on painted panel or
canvas, then some portions of the Siena pavement
are without a rival ; but we may assert that such a
height of pictorial representation is not the fittest
form of pavement art ; and that, remarkable as they
are, the “ Relief of Bethulia,” “ The Expulsion of
Herod,” and the “ Massacre of the Innocents,” do not
give the same sense of fitness which is aroused by the
simpler representations of the “ Sibyls,” the “Justice,”
“Fortitude,” or the “David”; those, in fact, which
belong to the early period in the pavement history.
If this is the case in the work of the full Renaissance,
it is still more apparent in the later works of Beccafumi
and his followers, and in the modern cartoon-like panels
of the last century. The varying materials of stone,
marble, or mosaic, cannot compete with the fine
qualities of paint or tempera. Simple and dignified
design is preeminently necessary in a floor. While a
“ Massacre of the Innocents ” will make a mosaic
panel of movement and pathos, on a floor it has a
look of being dropped from a wall ; on the other hand
a labyrinth or a representation of the Zodiac would
make dull paintings ; but on a floor, as we know is
the case at Ravenna, Chartres, or Otranto, their effect
is fine, and is one which arouses and stimulates the
imagination.

All this may be owing to the simple reason that a
picture on a floor is difficult to see and understand by
reason of its position. The prevailing habit of one
art to imitate another, as here at Siena the stone-
worker imitates the painter, does not affect us in other
cases. We admire the Flemish tapestry, the picture
woven, in close copy of a painting ; on the wall it is
right, on the floor it would become accursed ; and I
think Mr. Cust says truly of Beccafumi, where he
speaks of his discarding the old graffito method in his
outlines for a greater use of parti-coloured marbles,
“ Even now it is doubtful whether the results are so
practically durable or so artistically satisfactory on the
floor as the older work. It would seem they, in a
sense the apotheosis of this species of work, should be
set up perpendicularly so that the full effect of their
superb draughtsmanship could be fairly perceived and
appreciated.”

Mr. Cust has given us a very interesting account of
the craftsmen of the Siena pavement and of the work
itself as it now is. Research has enabled him to
determine in large measure its authors and dates.
His book as a handbook is admirable ; well arranged,
clearly printed, and well illustrated with pians and
reproductions from photographs. The visitors to the
Cathedral will find it useful, while as a book of refe¬
rence it is all that is needed. We may regret, how¬
ever, that it was decided, as the preface declares, to
omit criticism. Artists can make up their own minds
as to the fitness or otherwise of some of the work for
a pavement ; but as the book is likely to be used by
the student and the amateur, a critical chapter might
with advantage have been added. The book, how¬
ever, could not have been written without some ex¬
pression of view, as the extract quoted above shows.

Gerald C. Horsley.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVIEW, FEBRUARY,
I903, VOLUME XIII.
NO. 75.

HOUSEBREAKING IN THE STRAND.
DRAWN BY MUIRHEAD BONE.

Architecture and

A DISCUSSION. V. ( Conclusion .)
i. BY ALEXANDER GRAHAM.

The question of devising some satisfactory
mode of representing architecture on the walls of
an exhibition gallery seems as far from solution
as it was in earlier days, when the Royal Academy
took up its new quarters in Burlington House,
painting and sculpture finding ample accommoda¬
tion in lordly galleries, while architecture was
compulsorily housed in a small chamber of any¬
thing but lordly proportions. Year after year
comes the same lament that this Architectural
Room is a failure, the contents being uninstructive
to the student, and equally unattractive to the
sight-seeing public. And then comes the outcry
that the responsibility for such failure comes from
within the walls of the Royal Academy, and not
from without.

A little consideration of the whole subject by
any unprejudiced architect may assist in the
solution of a problem which has already entered
the controversial stage. On the one side we have
the Council of the Academy, the recognised
authority on national art, prepared with . open
hands to receive for exhibition any meritorious
work by painter, sculptor, or architect. With
the first two there can be no difficulty, for their
work, either with brush or chisel, is unmistake-
able evidence of individual skill. But with the
architect the case is totally different. The work
submitted by him for exhibition is neither more
nor less than a representation, either pictorial or
geometric, of a building or parts of a structure of
some kind or other, and, consequently, must be
judged from another standpoint. Such exhibits
are not necessarily the work of architects, but are,
in most cases, the handiwork of professional
draughtsmen specially trained to make pretty
pictures to catch the public eye. There was a
time when architectural drawing was rightly
regarded as a technical art, and T-square, rule,
and compasses were the principal implements
employed by an architect to convey his ideas to
paper. Drawings of this character will be found
to prevail in works on architecture of the eigh¬
teenth century, and elaborate specimens, prepared
by architects of high repute in the earlier half of
the nineteenth century, may still be studied in
portfolios in architectural libraries. But the most
noticeable examples of pure architectural drawing
may be seen in the Burlington Devonshire collec¬
tion, where the handiwork of Palladio, Inigo
Jones, and other masters of art may be studied
side by side. These productions are, in many

VOL. XIII.— D 2

the Royal Academy.

cases, supplemented by sketches of modelled and
decorative work, sufficient to convey the archi¬
tect’s ideas of scale, proportion, and fitness in the
composition and adornment of his building. But
this method of drawing, which achieved such
admirable results, would be regarded with some¬
thing akin to contempt by the pictorial draughts¬
men of our own time, and is not likely to find favour
in an age which encourages sham perspectives,
false accessories, and impossible skies.

Some few years ago I was inspecting the
architectural drawings at the Royal Academy
Exhibition, when the tomb-like silence of that
restful chamber, known as the Architectural
Room, was broken by female utterance, “ Oh,
what a pretty building ! ” I turned round and
found only two other occupants, a man and a
woman. Waiting an opportunity, I examined the
drawing which had stirred female emotion. Yes !
It might fairly be called a pretty building, with
its stately white facade, whether of brick or stone,
terra-cotta or marble, it was impossible to say.
Shadows were there, such as can only be seen
under a tropical sun, nameless birds hovered in
the cloudless sky, and a carriage and pair was
dashing up the spacious causeway. In a shadowy
corner was the inevitable policeman, and near
him was a small bareheaded boy, gazing with
wonder at the monumental edifice. How I pitied
that poor boy in the blazing sunshine ! Then,
taking note of the town that was to be adorned
with this *• pretty building,” I resolved to pay a
visit there when an opportunity offered. And what
did I see ? A long fagade of dark red brick with
a northern aspect, in a narrow, ill-paved street
that would have been fatal to the springs of a
well-appointed carriage. And for want of better
material to cover the wall space of one poor little
gallery, the Council of the Royal Academy are
compelled, as a matter of necessity, to admit
similar productions, commonly called architectural
drawings. Can you blame them ?

To suppose that the public are likely to be
attracted by pictorial representations of buildings,
or, in my opinion, by architectural drawings of
any kind may be dismissed as hopeless. They
see in the galleries devoted to painting and sculp¬
ture the creations themselves of the sculptor and
painter face to face. In the Architectural Room
they do not see the architect’s creations, but only
pictorial attempts of various degrees of merit, all
necessarily ineffectual to represent them. So
much of the pictorial art as finds place in an
architectural drawing is an endeavour to repre¬
sent, with more or less effect, the dimensions of a

48 Architecture and the Royal Academy.

building, its symmetry, proportions, grace of line
and traits of invention. But an architectural
drawing entirely fails to make felt the structure's
weight and mass, or to exhibit any skilled combi¬
nation of the forces of down pressure, thrust, and
resistance which it embodies. The nobility of
aspect, never absent from an ancient masterpiece
of architecture, is a testimony to its having been
conceived as an embodiment of these, quite as
much as a presentment of grace, symmetry, and
proportion of line and surface. And in the realised
combination of all its factors lies such a struc¬
ture’s supreme charm. In the Architectural
Room no indication is possible that, in the con¬
ception of any design, one ounce of ponderable
matter has been consciously dealt with. If,
therefore, a work of architecture can only be fully
judged in realised combination of all its factors,
and if none but a skilled architect can form an
approximate forecast of their realised expres¬
sion, it is surely desirable to impress upon
the general public their absolute and hopeless
incapacity to pass judgment upon architectural
designs.

It is a matter of regret that there are no present
indications of a return to the old order of honest
architectural drawing, and that, in spite of
continued ill-success, the prevailing custom of
representing buildings by little pictures, admirably
adapted for books and serial publications, should
be encouraged. Perhaps the day may come
when geometric drawings to a large scale in line
and colour, and perspective sketches to a very
small scale (sufficient to indicate the general
appearance of a building), may find favour with
the architect. And if the Council of the Royal
Academy were to make known their sympathies
with him by an intimation that pnetorial drawings
were to be of limited size, and that geometric
drawings and details of ornament and decorative
features would be judged on the score of archi¬
tectural merit rather than as displays of draughts¬
manship, a step would be taken, in my opinion,
in the right direction.

It is not essential, nor is it desirable, that such
drawings should be of that elaborate character
which is the marked characteristic of the handi¬
work of successful students in the Ecole des
Beaux Arts. Nothing can be more beautiful, as
examples of architectural drawing, than the meri¬
torious studies of the Pantheon by M. Chadanne,
or the restoration of the Baths of Diocletian by
M. Paulin. Few of our students, entering the
arena of practical architecture, could find leisure,
after the office day work, for such laborious
undertakings ; but, such is the skill displayed by
many of them in competitive work submitted for
our annual prizes and studentships, there is little

doubt they would hold their own in any inter¬
national competition.

Our period and country give rich opportunities
to the art of architecture. The growth of munici¬
pal life, the spread of education, and the munifi¬
cence of citizens in bequeathing works of art to
adorn the galleries of our great towns are among
them. The Vestry Hall of a previous generation
has given place to the Town Hall with its
stately chambers and fayade of palatial aspect.
The village school has been superseded by educa¬
tional buildings of almost monumental character,
and galleries embellished with painting and sculp¬
ture are finding favour with a better-informed
population. It is within the range of possibility
that, contingent upon a short period of peace
and prosperity, these newly-formed municipa¬
lities may be competing with each other in the
near future in the erection of buildings sumptuous
with marble and mosaic, and embellished with
the best creations of both painter and sculptor.
Nothing could tend more to further such a desir¬
able result, for the national benefit, than an
exhibition at Burlington House of drawings,
sketches, and models, by the architect, the
painter, and the sculptor, embracing the chief
constructive and decorative features of one or
more notable buildings in course of progress.
Such exhibits placed together in the same gallery
would bear testimony to the brotherhood of art.

2. BY D. S. MacCoLL.

The discussion on the architectural exhibi¬
tion at the Academy has run its course through
several numbers of the Architectural Review.*
I am to attempt a summing up, and to add anything
that occurs to an observer interested but not im¬
plicated in the matter.

Mr. Ricardo’s article, from which the discussion
started, contained a criticism and a definite pro¬
posal. The criticism was, in brief, that (1) the
space allotted to architecture in the summer exhi¬
bitions is too small to allow of proper illustration ;

(2) that proper illustration would consist of work¬
ing drawings, including plans, sections, and details
to ^ inch scale, models also, and photographs of
completed work, at the discretion of the exhibitor;

(3) that proper illustration does not include the
pictorial perspectives furnished by professional
draughtsmen : that these form the bulk of the
present exhibitions ; that they are there in the
vain hope of attracting popular interest to archi¬
tecture by mimicry of the adjoining pictorial

* October, 1902, by Messrs. Ricardo, Norman Shaw, Belcher,
and R. Blomfield ; November, by Mr. Ernest Newton; Decem¬
ber, by Messrs. Basil Champneys and Beresford Pite ; January,
1903, by Prof. Simpson.

Architecture and the Royal Academy.

exhibition, and that they are there in this abun¬
dance by direct encouragement in the tradition of
selection and hanging. Perspectives, he urged,
should be small-scale explanatory sketches by the
architect to give a general idea of grouping.

Mr. Ricardo’s proposal was that the summer
exhibition should be abandoned to the present
tradition, making itself as popular as it may, and
that a supplementary exhibition should be held in
the winter months, when the Academy is already
open for the Old Masters. Ample space might
then be found for an exhibition such as veritable
students could approve, and architects who at
present abstain might feel disposed to take part.

Mr. Ricardo’s criticism brought out a very
interesting statement of the Academical view
from Mr. Norman Shaw and Mr. Belcher, to be
considered in a moment ; but first there is a more
radical reply to be disposed of. In the view of
Mr. Blomfield and Mr. Champneys not only the
Academy exhibition, but any exhibition of archi¬
tecture by drawings is futile. Of this view it may
be said that it will commend itself rather to the
men whose ideas and methods, and also their
position as architects, are settled, than to the
younger and less reputed. An exhibition has two
possible virtues : advertisement for the exhibitor,
and instruction to be gained from other exhibitors.
The man who has won his place may have got
beyond the need, or at least the desire, of the
second, and he may be chary of giving up his
designs to the inevitable cribbing that follows
successful work ; but the beginner is more fluid
in his ideas, more eager to learn from contem¬
poraries, and he may be glad to show, not to the
public, but to the fellow artists who in the first
instance give him his reputation, of what he is
capable.

Granted, then, that there is to be an exhibition,
we now have it, under the hand of two acade¬
micians, that within the Academy as without, the
present exhibition is condemned. Both are at
one with Mr. Ricardo in disapproving the pictorial
perspective. If ever that has been the darling
of the hanger’s tradition, it is now, we may take
it, to be black-listed. Mr. Norman Shaw’s picture
of things from within is not that of complacent
hangers displaying, from embarrassing profusion,
models of what ought, in their view, to be dis¬
played. They are revealed as making the best of
a poor business. The small room is too big
really. There is not enough of good work to go
round its walls. And the academic appeal to
architects is to rally, to send no more of those
pictorial perspectives, to revert to severe pro¬
fessional methods of drawing, and to send in those
ample working drawings that they have fondly
supposed there was no space for. Here, then, is

one misunderstanding and delusion very usefully
cleared away.

Mr. Ricardo’s black picture, rearranged in this
fresh light, shows as follows : — There is no need
for a winter exhibition, because at present there
is more than room for all drawings of the right
sort sent in ; all that is wanted is more of the
right sort, and none of the right sort are over¬
looked. (Mr. Pite, it should be noted, is sceptical
on this head.) We may take it, however, that
the Academy is not, at present, prepared to admit
photographs. Mr. Shaw throws his weight rather
into the scale of highly-finished drawings, such
as are made by French Prix de Rome students. It
is urged, in reply, not unreasonably, that to demand
this standard of drawing from working architects
would mean bringing in the outside professional
draughtsman, whom we have just dismissed, in a
new role, and confusing the issue afresh between
the merits of the thing represented, the building,
and the charms of technique in its representa¬
tion. Mr. Champneys and Mr. Pite are all for the
actual working drawings, with no titivation for
exhibition purposes, and Mr. Pite urges that
framing and glazing should not be enforced. The
idea is that architects should address one another
in the current language of the workshop, by the
indications that are perfectly intelligible to them¬
selves, and with the least disturbance of their
actual work for purposes of parade. Mr. Simpson
points to a provincial exhibition, successfully
arranged in accordance with Mr. Ricardo’s ideas,
and demands greater facilities for the visits of
students.

Such being, in sum, the agreement and diver¬
gence of the views expressed, I will add the ob¬
servations that occur to me on the subject.

i. The Exhibition and the Public. — Archi¬
tects will surely be wise if they make up their
minds to it that the public who will take the
trouble to understand architectural drawings of
any kind, or who, having taken the trouble, will
be competent to appreciate, must always be a
small one. Mr. Belcher’s idea that “ in time the
public would also come to appreciate how much
is due to right proportions and to proper relations
and scale of each part to the whole building . .”

is, I fear, an amiable dream. The number of peo¬
ple who appreciate all this will continue to be a
meagre company outside of the profession, and
what is more, very limited inside of it. To think
it unnatural that only two visitors enter the
architectural room for every two thousand in the
painting rooms is to misconceive the situation. If
there were only good pictures in the painting
rooms these would be as empty as are those of the
National Gallery. In the matter of painting the
Academy has definitely capitulated to public taste.

50 Architecture and the Royal Academy.

It has no teaching, no convictions, holds up no
• standard ; it is not an academy at all, but a
universal provider. If this were profitably pos¬
sible in the case of architecture, the same thing
would have happened. But drawings, even of the
worst kind of architecture, have so feeble an
attracting power on popular taste that the efforts
of the most pictorial perspective-maker have not
compromised the architectural room beyond re¬
demption. To suppose that people will be tickled
by a pictorial perspective after a debauch of pic¬
tures, is like expecting a child to be corruptible by
bread thinly buttered after unlimited cream tarts.
By the nature of things, then, rather than by
their own virtue, the architects alone in the
Academy have still a respectable position that
defies their efforts to lose it. If no pictures were
in the adjoining rooms it is conceivable that by
this time the architects of the popular art journals,
the designers of art-nooks and all the rest of it,
might have made a popular show of architecture
in the Academy ; as it is, they have not a chance :
the bad picture is too much for bad architecture.

The architects, then, may thankfully resign
themselves to seeing, in their Academy exhibition,
instead of a bait for the obstinately shy public, a
possible influence on students of their art, a place
where a sense of honour and shame might be kept
acute, and a premium put upon the right am¬
bitions. The smaller the room the more intense
may be the effect produced. The managers of the
exhibition ought to go beyond selection, and
actively invite the thorough representation of
notable work. Better four good buildings on the
four walls than a job lot of four hundred. And
let them be assured that the more they aim at
doing the best thing for their students, the more
they will interest and influence the perceiving
part of the public. Severity will not alienate
them ; paltering does. The difficulty of under¬
standing the conventions of architectural drawings
has been very much exaggerated. To an intelli¬
gent man there is nothing inscrutable in an
elevation, a plan, or a section. Every man who
wishes to find his way makes use of a map. It is
only in a few matters, like staircases, that the
architect’s drawings call for a small exercise of
spatial imagination. The mystery in architectural
drawings is not what the lines stand for, is not the
construction, for that may be learned, is not the
planning, whose convenience may be appreciated ;
it is beauty of design that is the mystery. The
man who has the clue to this will find architec¬
tural drawings neither dull nor difficult; to the
man who has not they can only be a bore.

2. Perspectives. — It is not, then, for the
perceiving part of the public that the pictorial
additions to perspectives are required; they are

sauce for the artless client, and in decency should
be shown to him only in camera. But the re¬
action against these dressings of perspectives
might, it seems to me, do injustice to the uses
of the perspective itself. The fictitious perspective
is mischievous, but in many cases a diagram is
really called for to realise the effect of the building,
given the actual spaces round it. If these are not
taken into account, the perspective is fictitious.
But suppose the width of existing streets or
spaces taken into account, and that the build¬
ing has a feature like a dome, set back from the
street elevation. In the conventional elevation,
which supposes the eye to be at the level succes¬
sively of each part drawn, the dome projects
above the roof-line by the whole of its actual
height. I defy most draughtsmen to guess accu¬
rately at the true effect from the other side of the
street by an inspection of plan and elevation only.
A diagram would have to be constructed by the
designer for his own purposes, and this would be
a proper part of his exhibition apparatus. Con¬
ventional perspectives, moreover, of the bird’s-
eye sort, are very useful in giving a general idea
of dispersed groups of buildings ; not of their
aspect, but of their constitution as plan and
elevation. Familiar instances are Loggan’s views
of colleges, which are not reliable in detail, but
enable one to grasp easily the setting out of these
buildings. The policemen and hansom cabs
should be reduced to their true function, which is
to give a useful reference for scale. To serve this
purpose their scale must not be fictitious.

3. Models. — Some years ago models were
urged upon architects as more nearly approach¬
ing the real thing than drawings. Mr. Blomfield
has enumerated various drawbacks : I may point
out another in their ordinary use. We see them
as toy-like objects from above. To get anything
like the real aspect they should be supplemented
with a screen, pierced with eyeholes at a height
corresponding to the height of a spectator’s eye
on the scale of the model. Otherwise they only
serve the purpose of the bird’s-eye views referred
to above.

4. Photographs. — Mr. Newton is surely right
in his contention that photographs are the
most satisfactory common term for comparing
completed buildings, and the least misleading
means of judging what any single building looks
like. A picture of a building is one thing, viz.,
a pattern selected out of the lines, surface, and
shadows of a building, with some humouring for
the picture’s sake ; and we all pictorialise a build¬
ing that pleases us at all as we look at it. But the
uncompromising account of the facts is another
thing, and it is the thing we want for judgment,
without the picturesque draughtsman's bias pei-

Notes.

verting it. From most of the picturesque draughts¬
man’s efforts, it may be added, one can learn
precious little about the architecture, especially
when he employs a manner proper to thumb-nail
sketches on a drawing several feet in extent.

Photographs, then, would seem to be the
proper supplement of the architect draughtsman's
work in an exhibition. There is one point, how¬
ever, that has been a little lost sight of through¬
out the discussion. The summer exhibition at
the Academy is only one moment of an exhibition
that is going on all the year round. This exhibi¬
tion takes place in the pages of architectural
periodicals like our own Review. Now a photo¬
graph, unless of large size, is, like a small drawing,
a tiresome thing to look at on a wall : it is much
more comfortably visible on the printed page,
adjustable in the hand. This fact seems to indi¬
cate the reviews as a natural exhibition place
lor photographs and small drawings, while the
Academy is the necessary place for those larger
working drawings that cannot be printed on a
page without inconvenient reduction. The fact,
I may add, that so wide an all-the-year-round
exhibition is open to architects, makes the duty
of the Academy to enforce a high standard the
more easy, because there need be less fear of
injustice by exclusion and a large review of
material is ready to hand. Our policy, it may
not be out of place to say here, in this Review,
is to present, liberally, material that has one
claim or another to be considered in such a sift¬
ing. We present it, as in an exhibition, without
comment, reserving that for the really outstanding
cases.

5. The Winter Exhibition. — May I return,
last of all, to Mr. Ricardo’s suggestion, for the

The discussion on architectural drawing
and its exhibition is brought to a conclusion in
the present number, with the result, we may hope,
of some clearing up of ideas on that subject. It
will be immediately followed by the discussion of
a more fundamental question, that of architectural
education. This will be dealt with in the follow¬
ing way : — Before inviting an interchange of views
and projects, we shall publish a series of state¬
ments, as full and exact as possible, of the exist¬
ing systems of education, not only in the various
British centres, but also in France, Germany, and
America. This comparative survey will furnish
a ground-work for criticism, and we invite the
close attention of theorists to this “Blue Book”
work when they come to express their view of

purpose of pointing out that, oddly enough, for
the first time, I suppose, in the history of its
winter exhibition, the Academy this year has given
a room to architecture. The architecture, it is
true, is that of one Old Master, Daedalus to wit.
But in this fact, I think, we may see an opening
for an exhibition that would meet Mr. Shaw’s
desire for scholarly drawing of monuments, and
also Mr. Ricardo’s for ample illustration of inte¬
resting modern work. The difficulty with an
aged body like the Academy is to establish a new
precedent ; the difficulty, for it, is to annul the
precedent once established. Here is the prece¬
dent dropping from the sky (or coming up from
the shades). Let the architects claim it for es¬
tablished that they now have proprietary rights
in the gallery to the right of the entrance at
winter exhibitions ; that there is to be an archi¬
tectural “ Old Masters.” Such an exhibition
might include studies of old work such as Mr.
Schultz did in Greece and Constantinople. But
it might also include the drawings of deceased
Masters up to the most recent, as is the case on
the painting side. The precedent, it may be
remarked, has set out with a fine carelessness of
established rules : there are photographs in it,
and casts and models, as well as drawings.

The upshot of our discussion then is, that we
may look for a new departure at the summer-
exhibition of the Academy, if architects will
respond to Mr. Shaw’s challenge and send in
workmanlike drawings ; and that if architects
know how to deal with Fortune when she is off
guard, they have their Old Masters’ exhibition
secured. If these two changes should spring from
the friendly interchange of views here the dis¬
cussion will not have been in vain.

t e s.

what is the desirable system for England.
Things are in a highly fluid state at present
between the old prentice-system and the va¬
rious tentatives at regular teaching ; and a great
deal will depend on the lead given to thought
in the next year or two before it stiffens into
organisation.

We hope in a later number to give some illus¬
tration of the remarkable discoveries at Knossos
in Crete, due to the energy of Mr. Arthur Evans.
In the meantime we may advise all architects to
visit the display of photographs, drawings, and
casts illustrative of these discoveries to be seen
at Burlington House, in an exhibition that ranges
from Daedalus to Mr. John Brett.

Mediaeval Southampton.

Of the endless stream of travellers who
pass through Southampton on their way to distant
lands, probably not one in a thousand ever thinks
of the town as anything more than an important
modern seaport whose prominence is practically
coincident with the South African War. But
Southampton has seen other periods of prosperity
besides the present, and can still exhibit to the
sightseer relics of her greatness which date back
at least to the time of William the Conqueror.
It is not certain whether the spot was fortified in
Saxon times; but if it was, the defences were
evidently unavailing, for the Danes landed here
in 873 and plundered the inhabitants. They
landed again in 980, and again a few years later,
which incidentally proves that the town was of
some importance to have commanded such atten¬
tion from enemies. Later on Southampton had
to protect herself almost constantly against the
French, and in 1338 suffered terrible disaster at
their hands when they landed from fifty galleys
and sacked the whole town, being only driven off
with the assistance of the country round after the
damage had been done. But it was not only as a
town which enemies might destroy at their leisure
that Southampton excelled, though singularly
enough nearly all its historical associations are
connected with war, either aggressive or defensive.
It was here that Edward III. and the Black
Prince embarked with their army for the cam¬
paign which ended at Crecy, and, at a later date,
Henry V. mustered his army here and sailed away
to fight at Agincourt, while the town supplied its
quota to assist in checking the Spanish Armada.

There have been two periods of activity in
building the walls, the first in Norman days fol¬
lowing the incursions of the Danes, and the
second in the fourteenth century as a reply to the
sack of the town by the French ; but while there
are many portions which are entirely Decorated
in style, there is little of the Norman work re¬
maining which has not been altered at the later
period. The town, that is to say the old town
which was enclosed within the walls — for what is
now Southampton Docks was, until 1838, merely
two hundred acres of slime and mud — stands at
the southern end of a narrow spit of land abutting
upon Southampton Water, and bounded on the
east and west by the rivers Itchen and Test, so
that it was eminently adapted to become a strong
fortress. The base of the walls on the west and
south was washed by the tide, and a broad ditch
protected the other two sides. This ditch has
long since disappeared, but its name survives, for

the narrow alley now standing upon its site is still
familiarly called “The Ditches.”

The circuit of the walls comprised seven gates,
five chief towers, and nineteen or twenty smaller
ones, the number of the latter being differently
give 1 by various authorities, the discrepancy
probably arising through a misconception as to
what was a tower and what was merely a large
fiat buttress. In addition to these defences, the
western curtain was strengthened and dominated
by the Castle, which stood on a high artificial
mound, but has entirely disappeared, except the
bailey wall which ran inward in a double curve
from the town wall and joined it again further
south near the vanished Bridlegate. The Castle
consisted of a keep standing in the midst of a
small enclosure to which there were two gates,
the chief of which, Castle Gate, stood in what is
still called Castle Lane, where a fragment of the
masonry still juts out into the roadway marking
the exact site. The Castle Postern has entirely
disappeared. Castle Watergate may be dismissed
for the present, as it is included in the circuit of
the walls. History does not tell us much about
the Castle itself, but from the records of the various
Constables we gather incidentally that it was not
an unmixed blessing to live in a walled seaport
town; for in 1206, Robert de Cantaloupe was in¬
structed to seize ships for the King, and owners
who hesitated in parting with their vessels were
to be treated as enemies ; and in 1339, Sir
Richard Talbot was commanded to see that the
town defences were kept up at the expense of the
inhabitants (this was the year after the great sack
by the French). By 1376 the burgesses felt

NORTH BAILEY WALL.

Mediceval Southampton

SOUTHAMPTON: THE WALLED TOWN.

Mediaeval Southampton .

NORTH-WEST ANGLE WITH ARUNDEL AND CATCHCOLD TOWERS.

themselves so burdened with the incessant mu¬
rages that they petitioned the King to accept the
town at their hands and relieve them of the
expense of keeping the walls in repair. The
Castle was early allowed to fall into decay, and
by 1550 it had become customary to shoot rubbish
on the Castle Green. In 1618, what remained
was granted away to the Gollop family, who
speedily cleared the site by permitting the stone
to be removed for the repair of the walls.

The most convenient point for commencing a
survey of the walls is the north-west angle, where
the northern ditch emptied into Southampton
Water. Along the western side of the town,
where the walls still stand nearly 30 ft. high
as far as the south bailey of the Castle, there are
two towers which claim notice. The first is
Arundel Tower, the summit of which stands about
60 ft. high above the former water level, or about
55 ft. above the Western Shore Road, which was
made within the last fifty years and skirts the
whole of this side. The tower is now a mere
shell of Decorated masonry, with indications of
the rampart walk and a flight of steps leading
from the north town wall to the summit. The
second tower, 130 ft. away, is called “ Wind
Whistle,” or “ Catchcold ” Tower, and is seem¬
ingly of Perpendicular date, as it is evident from
the masonry on either side that it is an insertion
in the Decorated curtain. Further south the

wall breaks forward to an obtuse angle which is
dominated by a salient carried out to a diagonal
buttress on flat arches and also Decorated in
structure. This fourteenth century masonry
ceases a few feet further to the south at the spot
where the north bailey of the castle swept round
to the town wall and terminated in a broad
buttress built upon the sea-front of the wall to
take the thrust. Here the stonework changes

INTERIOR OK ARUNDEL TOWER.

Mediceval Southampton.

CASTLE WATERGATE.

from large and small stones used indiscriminately
to small ones of uniform size and roughly squared,
and as it is exactly similar to the Norman work
in King John’s Palace it may, without fear of
contradiction, be attributed to the same period.
This continues to the south bailey, a distance of
about 120 yards in an unbroken line, save for
seven buttresses towards the end, which seem to
have been added at various times as the tide
weakened the foot of the wall and rendered
repairs necessary. Between the fourth and fifth
of these stands the Castle Water Gate, and to the
left of this is a vaulted chamber 55 ft. 3 in. by
19 ft. 6 in. by 25 ft. high. It is roofed with a
barrel vault upon strong transverse arches. There
is no access to it from above — it may have been
entered from the Water Gate — and the floor level
is above the present roadway and consequently
6 ft. above the water-line. It has one narrow-
pointed window and a small doorway opening to
the sea. The Water Gate is a mere fragment of
its former self and has three steps remaining of a
flight which led to the small Castle Quay, a
landing stage to which the door of the vaulted
chamber probably also gave access. From this
gate to the south bailey there seem to have been
other vaulted chambers, as there are indications
of loops and windows in two storeys.

South of the bailey the wall crossed the castle
moat — if there was one as Davies’ “ History of
Southampton ” suggests, but its use is not evident
—and projected south-west in a large bastion
which protected this moat, Biddlesgate and the
West Quay, though not a vestige of these features
remains. Bridlegate or Biddlesgate seems to
have been merely an arch in the wall protected
by machicolations, but was of great importance

5 5

as it formed one of the chief approaches to the
then shipping centre.

At this point the West Quay, now incorporated
in the Western Shore Road, commenced and ex¬
tended about 230 yards as far as Bugle Tower.
Half the Kings of England landed and embarked
here during their periodical excursions into the
region of their real or imaginary French posses¬
sions, and among other travellers a large number
of the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from this once nar¬
row strip of gravel to help in founding the mighty
nations which have arisen in North America.

Resuming the circuit from Biddlesgate there
are two other gates which led to the Quay, Blue
Anchor Postern and Westgate, both of which are
still in existence. Here also begins the Decorated
arcading with which the Norman walls were
strengthened, together with three towers which
were pulled down in 1775. The walling is 30 ft.
high, the Norman portion 4 ft. thick, and the
Decorated addition 3 ft. thick, making a total
thickness of 7 ft. The supporting piers of the
arches are built into the older work as high as
the springing, but above that the outer wall is
16 in. thick, and stands 20 in. clear of the Norman
wall behind, forming a continuous machicolation
hidden in the thickness of the wall. The Arcade
has been built without regard to the openings in
the rearwork, and would almost seem to have
been contrived to block the windows. This is
particularly the case with the building called
King John’s Palace, which occupies the two bays
south of Blue Anchor Postern. The town docu¬
ments make frequent mention of the “ King’s
Houses,” and this edifice and another which stood
on the north side of the Postern — Blue Anchor

THE ARCADING, WITH KING JOHN’S PALACE
AND THE BLUE ANCHOR POSTERN.

Mi edi ceva l Southampton .

WESTGATE FROM THE QUAY.

Lane being merely an alley between them, and
the Postern a plain pointed arch with a portcullis
— are commonly held to be the houses referred to,
but the Rev. S. Davies, to whose “ History of
Southampton ” the present writer is indebted for
much of his information, combats the idea, say¬
ing that their small size is against the suggestion,
and that the Castle was not a hundred yards
away, where the King would certainly secure far
better accommodation. Be this as it may, King
John’s Palace shares with the Jews’ house at
Lincoln the distinction of being the chief relic
of Norman domestic work in England. It is
simple in the extreme, and measures about 40 ft.
square. Internally it had two floors, the upper
being chief, with a fine shafted fireplace on the
north wall and the chimney carried up in an
external projection upon four plain corbels. There
is also on this floor an intramural passage, which
leads from the east wall along the south till it
ends in the town wall upon the west. The house
had a doorway to the beach, and therefore does
not seem to have been intended seriously as part
of the defences, but in the fourteenth century the
arch was blocked up and only an oillet left. The
windows are all two-light round-arched, with
simple mouldings and a shaft with a cushion
capital between the openings.

There are no more features of interest except a

salient — in the middle of which the masonry
changes from Norman to Decorated — similar to
the one already described, between this point and
the Westgate. This Westgate is a structure of
Decorated date, and one of the most picturesque
spots in Southampton. It is three storeys in
height, and was formerly square topped with two
embrasures on each side for artillery, but the

THE OLD GUARD ROOM.

Medueval Southampton.

THE WESTGATE.

embrasures are converted into windows now, and
a tile roof adds just the requisite amount of colour
to render it a perfect “bit” for artists. It was
defended by portcullises worked from above, and,
in addition, there are rows of holes in the vaulted
archway for the purpose of pouring boiling water
or lead on an enemy. Beside the gate is a flight
of steps leading to the “ alure,” and separating
the gate from the old Guard Room, also a Deco¬
rated structure, built of wood on a stone base,
and erected against the town wall, but still pre¬
serving the alure, although the part covered by
the Guard Room is incorporated in the building.
The town guard mustered here in times of danger,
received their orders, and marched out along the
ramparts to their allotted posts. South of the
Westgate the work is Decorated, clearly marked
in most places, but at intervals degenerating into
a slovenly rubble as if built in a hurry, possibly

when the French, in 1404, were ravaging the Isle
of Wight and were expected at Southampton.
Behind a portion of this wall are the remains of
another vaulted chamber. There are the remains,
too, of an arcade similar to the one described, but
consisting of six arches, of which only two are
complete. The sixth of these probably abutted
against Bugle Tower, which has disappeared, but
is known to have stood somewhere near this spot.
From here onwards as far as God’s House Tower,
at the south-east of the town, there is little enough
to show that fortifications ever existed along this
front, for in addition to Bugle Tower, St. Barbara’s
and Woolbridge Towers have disappeared, as well
as the town Watergate and nearly the whole cur¬
tain wall. The West Quay ceased at Bugle
Tower, and from here to the Watergate Quay the
tide washed the foot of the walls, leaving at low
water a narrow strip of shingle called the “ Gravel.”

M ed iceva l Sou tJi a mp ton .

THE SPANISH PRISON.

Between Bugle and Corner Towers the walls re¬
main to a height of about io ft., and appear to
have been patched up incessantly, and now have
little interest. The foundations of the Corner
Tower are still visible. The southern defences
were destroyed by Act of Parliament, 1803-4, 1°
allow of harbour improvements. Behind these
vanished works were, and still remain, the gra¬
naries and stores, chief among which is the Wool-
house, a rectangular structure of fourteenth-cen¬
tury date, with quaint semi-cylindrical buttresses.
It is more familiarly known as the “ Spanish
Prison,” and is thus a link with the Peninsular
War. The foundations of the other stores have
been used as a superstructure for their modern
successors, but the Decorated masonry and but¬
tresses may be still seen 20 ft. high in places.
In this same line behind the wall is also the frag¬
mentary portion of a building which was evidently
another Norman house but of considerable extent,
and it has in consequence been called “ Canute’s
Palace,” for no other reason apparently beyond
its size. It was over 100 ft. long by 16 ft. wide,
two storeys in height, and consisted of two long
galleries superimposed. Probably it was divided
into apartments by wooden screens. It has no
features of interest, as the original openings are
greatly disguised, and even the alterations which
were made in the Decorated style have almost
entirely gone. Old drawings of this portion of
the walls show a high semi-circular tower of three

storeys with a sloping base, called Canute’s Tower,
which, as no existing plan gives this name to any
portion of the defences, is probably to be identified
with Woolbridge Tower. The drawings show a
breach close beside the tower, and as a breach is
known to have been made near the Watergate
about 1780 this surmise is probably correct.

The Watergate, or Flood Gate as it was occa¬
sionally called, was an erection dating back to
Richard II., and afforded the only approach to the
Town Quay: and this is the chief cause of its
destruction and the disappearance of the adjoining
curtain. Something still remains of the curtain
in a house west of the gate, where there are four
machicolations in cement, and the house next to
where the gate stood still follows the curve of the
old wall, but is also masked in cement. An un¬
dated engraving of this portion, apparently about
a hundred years old, shows these same features in
stone, so that it is probable that the removal of
the stucco would reveal the original town wall.
The arch of the Watergate soon proved utterly
inadequate for the traffic, and a postern was then
cut on the western side, which was also insufficient.
Then a breach was made east of the gate, and
after that anyone who desired to tranship goods
to his premises merely made a breach of his own
at the most convenient point. The eastern breach
was made too close to the gate and shook the
abutment, so that a part of the Watergate col¬
lapsed in 1800, and the whole was taken down

Mediczval Southampton

THE WATERGATE. FROM AN OLD PRINT.

GOD’S HOUSE TOWER.

M edicBva l Southampton .

BACK OF THE WALLS.

four years later. The Watch Tower, which was
similar to Woolbridge Tower, has disappeared,
but its foundations exist in the base of a bay
window of a public-house, and thus render it
possible still to trace the walls across the south of
the town.

God’s House Tower, so called from its proximity
to God’s House or the Hospital of St. Julian —
now the French Church — is of two periods, the
left-hand portion in the illustration dating back
to the thirteenth century and the rest being a
century later. Both portions, except the tower
proper, seem to have been carried up higher, and
probably were adorned with battlements. The

addition of the later portion has thrown the gate¬
way into a corner as it were, but this was done as
a protection to the sluices of the ditch and seems
to have been a necessary precaution owing to the
frequent French attacks. In the fifteenth century
this building was used as a store, and from 1707
till 1855 was the town gaol.

Turning northwards from this point, the wall
continued in a long, sinuous line for a distance of
nearly a quarter of a mile to Polymond Tower, at
the north-east angle, with only one gateway —
Eastgate — and six or seven semicircular turrets,
all of which have practically disappeared, not
apparently by deliberate licensed-by-Act-of-Parlia-
ment vandalism, as was the case on the south side,
but by the more insidious process of individual
destructiveness. The southernmost of the semi¬
circular towers is still standing, together with
a few fragments of wall about breast-high and of
Decorated masonry, with tumbledown cottages
built into and up against them. These are all the
actual remains, but the names of vanished de¬
fences still survive, and incontrovertibly fix the
position of ditches and walls. Thus what was
once the passage-way which gave access to the
ramparts in times of stress is still called “ Back-
of-the-Walls,” and, incidentally, it is still quite as
noisome as it could ever have been, even in the
“good old days.’’ Cats, children, and dustbins
abound in this locality, and one of the latter
occupies the interior of the rectangular projection,
shown on plan as coming next to the still remain¬
ing tower. Outside this wall was a moat, stated
frequently to have been a double ditch, though old
drawings and engravings only show a single one

EASTGATE, FROM AN ENGRAVING BY HOOPER, MADE IN 1 784.

Medieval Southampton.

6 1

THE POLYMOND TOWER.

about 30 ft. wide. This spot has seen many
changes since the ditch was first dug, for subse¬
quently, about a hundred years ago, a canal was
projected and actually excavated, though never
opened. This has now been filled up and built
over, leaving only a narrow alley (on the exact
site of the counterscarp of the old moat) called
officially “ Canal Walk,” but, as already men¬
tioned, popularly known as “ The Ditches,” the
two names taken together forming a very complete
epitome of its history. Bridge Street is a com¬
paratively modern road, and was not made until
the defences became useless.

The Eastgate, now destroyed, consisted of a
semi-octagon projecting between two round towers
and wholly Decorated in style. It was well sup¬
plied with oillets, and seems to have been very
strong with a battlemented summit arranged for
artillery, which was thus able to sweep the whole
ditch with its fire. It had a drawbridge until
1670, when it was removed, and a bridge built in
its place of stone taken from the Castle. There
appears to have been a chapel over the gate. This
structure was entirely destroyed in 1775, probably
so as not to obstruct the line of the canal.

The next fragment in existence is St. Denys or
Polymond Tower, a building little known even to
natives of the town, as it lies now hidden from

sight at the end of a brewer’s yard and embosomed
in trees and creepers. Its first name is probably
connected with St. Denys Priory, the scanty
remains of which lie about two miles up the River
Itchen. The name of Polymond is attributable
to John Polymond, who was nine times mayor of
Southampton between 1365 and 1392, dates which
are quite in agreement with the character of the
tower.

The north wall of the town, 200 yards in extent,
is the shortest of them all, with three semicircular
towers, of which a fair amount remains still to be
seen, and one gate, Bargate, at once the joy and
sorrow of Southampton. Its gateway is so narrow
that it effectually blocks all traffic year in and
year out, and year in and year out schemes are
drafted by which either the gate is removed or the
roadway engineered round the side, as has been
done at Warwick. To remove it would be little
less than a deliberate sin, for it is one of the most
picturesque of mediaeval gateways in the kingdom.
It consists mainly of three portions — the wide
Norman arch in the centre, which was the original
gateway, and flush with the line of the curtain ;
two semicircular towers of Early Decorated type,
projecting into the ditch ; and a semioctagon
(Richard II.) occupying the space between them
and projecting still further outwards. It once

VOL. xiu. — F.

Mediczval Southampton.

THE BARGATE.

had its drawbridge and portcullises, but these
disappeared when this portion of the moat was
filled up, about the beginning or middle of the
sixteenth century. It has been altered many
times, for Queen Elizabeth blocked up the centre
and cross oillet with a coat-of-arms, and at one
period of its history a vandalistic corporation
placed sash windows in the position of the side
oillets. The two posterns were cut about the
year 1770. The two lions cast in lead once
guarded the bridge giving approach to the gate¬
way. The town side of Bargate is a restora¬
tion, and has a modern appearance, but the
sun-dial is original. In a bellcote to the left
is a watch-bell dated 1605, the only remaining
one of several about the walls which sounded
the time of day, and also on occasion the alarm.
York Gate, to the east of Bargate, is a modern
insertion. There is nothing to be seen of the
walls from Bargate to Arundel Tower, and this

portion seems to have been masked by old timber
buildings for at least two centuries.

Apart from the old walls, Southampton has
not much of architectural interest. There are
many churches, it is true, and at least three of
them are of ancient foundation, but these have un¬
fortunately been mutilated or re-built. St. Mary’s,
the mother church, which, for some reason un¬
known to the writer, lies half a mile outside the
walls, was founded by Matilda, but pulled down
in 1550 because the spire formed an inconveniently
good landmark for French invaders. It now
forms the core under the road metalling of Bar-
gate Street and East Street. Another and smaller
church was built a few years later, a third in 1711
(enlarged in 1833), and the present one com¬
menced in 1878 from designs by Street. It is
rather a curious coincidence that the spire of the
present St. Mary’s is not yet built, though it is on
account of funds, and not of French invaders.

Mediceval Southampton.

Holy Rood Church was originally built in the
middle of High Street (corner of Bridge Street),
and in 1320 was removed to a less prominent posi¬
tion on the other side of the pavement. It was re¬
built fifty years ago, all except the tower, which,
however, is quite as uninteresting as if it had suf¬
fered along with the rest of the edifice. It con¬
tains a very good brass lectern of the fourteenth
century, representing an eagle on a globe, which
in turn is supported on a tower standing on three
lions. Even St. Michael’s Church is but the
shadow of its former self, for the whole interior
arrangement has been ruthlessly altered. Origi¬
nally it was Norman — and very early Norman,
too, as is attested by the plain and massive tower
crossing ; but the nave arcade has given way to
iron and stucco columns of a not very great many
years ago. The external walls are original Nor¬
man masonry for the most part, with Early
English windows inserted, and Perpendicular
tracery again inserted in the earlier arches. There
is also a very good sixteenth century monument
to Sir R. Lyster in the north aisle, but space will
not admit of an illustration ; some old chained
books and a very good carved Jacobean chest and
cupboard in the vestry dated 1646. But the gem
of St. Michael’s is the font. This consists of a
square block of black marble on a cylindrical
base sculptured with rude carvings, and credited
with being of fabulous antiquity. It seems pro¬
bable that, together with the fonts at Winchester

Cathedral, East Meon, and a fourth in the north
of England, the one at St. Michael’s dates from
about 1180, and is the work of Flemish artists,
the shallowness of the carving being due not

ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH.

M ec ii ceva l South a mp to n .

FONT, ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH.

so much to inability on the part of the worker as
to the hardness of the material. The whole font
is untouched except for the small angle shafts of
the base, which replace the original ones.

Of monastic and semi-ecclesiastical institutions
Southampton has had a large share ; but for the

most part these buildings are no more, and even
the actual location of some of them is in dispute.
But those of which a vestige remains a few
words may be added. St. Denys Priory (Augus-
tines) was founded in 1124, and does not seem to
have been famous for the good behaviour of its
monks, for the records preserve a set of rules
drawn up on account of the prevailing disso¬
luteness, which would hardly be considered
necessary in the most depraved of modern
communities. It was duly suppressed under
Henry VIII., and the property passed through
various hands and suffered various acts of van¬
dalism until, in the beginning of last century, all
that remained was pulled down, except a fragment
of Early English walling pierced with a single
lancet window and the relics of a doorway, which
stands isolated and forgotten in a field by the
river. A convent of Friars Minor (Franciscans)
also existed within the walls, but the only trace of
the fraternity now remaining is a fragment of
a conduit head a mile from the old town dating
back to about 1300.

The Hospital of St. Julian, or God’s House,
which gave its name to the south-east tower on
the walls, has rather more to show of its former
extent; but, although it was built in 1195, the

TUDOR HOUSE.

Forms of the

portions which remain — now the French Church
and a gateway leading thereto under a tower —
show a mixture of transitional Norman and Per¬
pendicular details, and are of no particular in¬
terest.

One house of all that must have enriched such
a thriving city alone stands to-day as evidence of
former greatness— Tudor House, in St. Michael’s

Tuscan Arch. 65

Square, a very fine and rich example of half-
timbered construction. Nothing is known con¬
cerning it, but as Henry VIII. was a frequent
visitor to the town, popular tradition has invented
a legend that Anne Boleyn resided there, and it
has a considerable romantic interest for those whc
can swallow myths which are not in any way sup¬
ported by documentary evidence.

Robert W. Carden.

Forms of the Tuscan Arch.

In the domestic and civic architecture of
Italy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
we find arches of which our illustrations should
enable the reader to typify for himself the most
frequent and characteristic forms. They are con¬
structed of massive masonry. The intrados is gene¬
rally semicircular, though it becomes slightly
pointed in some of the later examples. The
extrados varies extremely, but its varieties maybe
reduced to one or other of three dominant types.
In the first of these it is a portion of a circle struck
from a higher centre than that of the intrados, so
that a greater or less “ horseshoeing ” is perceptible
at the base of the arch.* In the second the extrados
is composite and rises above the intrados in the
graceful form of a Gothic arch. In the third this
effect of height is greatly increased by a device
borrowed from the first type, and the extrados
becomes what would be called in Italian an arco
composto sorpassato, where the forms of the Gothic
and horseshoe arches are seen in combination. f
We may be allowed to regret that this arch has
not received more attention in modern architec¬
tural practice : it is undoubtedly a form capable
of very noble use and development.

Taking the second of these types as the most
frequent, normal, and characteristic, we are now
concerned to note that closer examination shows
it for something much more subtle and remark¬
able than it would seem at first sight. Here is
no mere Gothic form given to the extrados of
what is substantially and structurally a round-
headed arch. The voussoirs which compose it
are, at least in many cases, so cut that the twin
forms of extrados and intrados in this doubly
composite arch are the just and beautiful result of
its inward structure. The principle of the semi¬
circular intrados makes itself felt in the upper
voussoirs whose joints lie along the radii of that

* An example given may be seen in the village of Monsummano
Alto, Tuscany, which has hardly been inhabited since the plague
of 1348.

f The illustration of this form is taken from an ancient
arch at No. i, Por Santa Maria, Florence. It is a rare example
of double-pointing in early times.

curve. But the lower voussoirs on each side
answer to the extrados, as their joints radiate
from two centres which lie near the opposite
corners of the base. Thus this interesting arch
is partially Gothic, not only by the form given to
its extrados, but in the principle of its construc¬
tion, and may be held for a composite form of a
very deep and remarkable kind. As to its dis¬
tribution that is wide enough. A stroll along
the narrower and more ancient streets of almost
any Tuscan town will bring the student face to
face with unnumbered examples, and the same
may be said of Umbria, where Perugia and
Assisi are peculiarly rich in material for these
studies. A remarkable, if not unique, variant
may be ciUd from the Bigallo at Florence. Here
the small door has in its head an arch whose
extrados and intrados are both pointed, while,
however, the joints of the voussoirs radiate from
a single normal centre. This example then is
essentially Romanesque, though its outward form
has become completely Gothic. Of uncertain
date,0 it should be particularly noted as furnish¬
ing the final link in the chain of these successive
and varied forms of arch construction.

The best point of departure for the study of
such arches will be found in certain church doors
of Lucca and its neighbourhood. To mention
no others, the fa5ades of San Frediano and Sta
Maria Forisportam in that city, and a remarkable
door or window raised many feet from the ground
in the north face of the campanile at Diecimo
(valley of the Serchiojf show plainly the primi¬
tive way of building by which in early times their
architects sought to gain a certain desired effect

* This door is plainly part of an older building — perhaps of
the famous Guardamorto — which has been saved and incorpo¬
rated with the Bigallo.

f Similar door or window arches may be seen in the town of
Lucca itself by those who have not time to travel further afield
They will be found in the south face of the Campanile of San
Frediano; the east face of the Campanile of the Duomo, and a
civil example, though but ill-preserved, may be traced on the
north face of an ancient tower at the corner of the Piazza del
Salvatore and the Via Calderia.

Forms of the Tuscan Arch.

TYPICAL TUSCAN ARCH— POR S. MARIA, FLORENCE.

of height in such constructions. The door-jambs
were treated as flat pilasters with projecting and
sometimes richly floriated capitals. Over these
was laid a deep and massive lintel, and it is this
which, with its elaborate and deeply-cut foliage
or figure subjects, forms such a strongly-marked
feature in the ancient architecture of Lucca.
Over this again the pilasters were repeated in a
stunted form and with capitals less boldly marked,
and from these, at last, sprang the simple round-
headed arch which it had been the architect’s
purpose in all this storied underbuilding to carry
as high as possible above the headway of the
door. Here then we have a reason for the depth
given to the great lintel stone, and for the pre¬
sence of the smaller pair of pilasters which rested
on it, while the remarkable sculpture generally
found on the lintel and the mouldings, if no more,
which served as capitals to the final pilasters was
no doubt designed to reduce, if not remove, the
somewhat clumsy effect of what was in fact a
double stilting of the arch.

The Diecimo door* shows us the same arrange-

* This cannot easily be photographed, hence we have substi¬
tuted for it in the illustrations a door of the same type which is
found in the west face of the Torre delle Ore, Lucca, and will
serve the purpose of this study equally well.

ment of parts, but in the simplest form, and
stripped of all adventitious ornament, and it is
particularly useful as helping us to see clearly
the connection of the Lucchese door-heads with
the composite arches of Tuscany. Imagine that
the doorway of S. Maria Forisportam has been
chiselled to the absolute level of the wall-face,
and you have a result exactly like what may be
seen at Diecimo. In the latter example the jambs
have lost their capitals, except at the angles of
the doorway, where the simple brackets which
still remain to support the lintel may certainly be
held for a survival of them at the two precise
points to which the reducing process we have
supposed could not reach. Now such brackets
under the lintel are a well-known feature in the
older Tuscan doors — Florence has many examples
of this arrangement — and it is therefore interest¬
ing to find at Lucca the fuller form of which they
are the incomplete survival.

Nor is this all that may be learned at Diecimo.
The severe plainness of construction seen here is
carried out with consistence even in the door-head,
where the simple Romanesque arch has neither
carving about its extrados nor mouldings to mark
where it springs. Thus nothing is left to mask
the real nature of its building, and both the lintel

Forms of the Tics can Arch.

DOOR OF BIGALLO — FLORENCE. NORTH DOOR— S. M. FORISPORTAM, LUCCA.

Forms of the

and what it immediately supports are seen for
what they truly are : a stilting in two stages,
meant to give height to the round-headed arch
above.

Now just as the brackets of this door have
helped us to understand those commonly found in
such situations throughout Tuscany, so does the
upper part of the same example throw light on
what we are chiefly concerned with here : the
varied forms of arch used in the Tuscan door-
heads. Judged and interpreted by what is found
at Diecimo, these horseshoe and Gothic forms, in
all their varied combinations with the Romanesque
arch and with each other, are nothing but attempts
successively made to gain, with a new grace un¬
known to the older style, the same effect of height
and proportion once sought in the studied stilting
of a simple round-headed arch. That the new
expedients were successful is seen in the fact that
the builders who employed them were aide almost
at once to dispense with the help of that lavish
ornament which their predecessors had so freely
used to mask or relieve the clumsiness of the plan
on which they worked.

Such a view of the matter may easily be con¬
firmed by greater and more striking instances of
what is essentially the same practice. At Pisa, for
example, the Cathedral has Romanesque arches in
the central nave, but in the aisles both arches and
vaulting become pointed, and for a very obvious
reason. The aisles are double, and the columns
which divide them being a good deal shorter than
those of the nave, it became a difficult matter to
contrive arches and vaulting in the aisles which
should combine well with those built to support
the clerestory. Now the problem was solved not
by stilting, but by introducing Gothic arches in
the aisle arcades, and so carrying these up to a
point where vaulting common to both might easily
connect them with the round arches of the nave.*

Or take the case of the horseshoe arch. When
at Lucca, in the opening years of the thirteenth
century, a new porch was ordered at San Martino,
the architect found his limits strictly defined by
the projection of the Campanile on the south and
the line of the Church wall on the north, while
yet the arches he was to build must be made to
fall opposite the three doors in the fagade. The
arch next the Campanile had perforce to be made
smaller than the other two, and the architect,
wishing in spite of this difficulty to gain some¬
thing like a just proportion, or rather to mask as
far as possible the want of it, has given this
smaller arch more than something of a horseshoe

* Another and probably earlier example of the pointed arch,
apparently used from mere delight in its form, may be found in
San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno. It was evidently well known to the
early Pisan builders.

Tuscan Arch.

shape as the most graceful form of stilting which
he knew or could contrive.*

A very singular example of the horseshoe arch
is to be seen at Florence, which not only confirms
the conclusion we have already reached, but
shows considerable connection with the Lucchese
stiltings already noticed. The lower part of the
fagade of San Stefano of Florence has fortunately
been left in its primitive state : it is commonly
held for work of the twelfth century. The main
door is set in a flat frame of black and white
marbles laid in alternate horizontal bands. These
become vertical wedges in the lintel, which is
built in the form of a level arch. Above this rises
a slightly-pointed arch to form the door-head.
That is, the extrados is slightly pointed over a semi¬
circular intrados, and the peculiarity here is that
the intrados so combines with the slanting lines
of the lintel voussoirs as to be in them prolonged
downwards through the lintel in the form of a
horseshoe. So far, studying the intrados alone,
we see that this result might be simply an acci¬
dental form unintentionally evolved in the course
of construction. But when we pass to the ex¬
trados it is plain that what we have found here
was a studied effect of art. The door-head arch is
outlined by a shallow three-line moulding about the
extrados. Now these lines are carried onwards and
downwards through the depth of the lintel at the
same inclination till a short horizontal return brings
them to meet the corners of the doorway. Thus
the horseshoe form stands out here as a clear
intention of the builder. By a strange coinci¬
dence the iron-plated door below bears an actual
horseshoe nailed upon it : the same which one
story connects with the visit of Charlemagne to
Florence in the opening years of the ninth cen¬
tury, and another with the death of Buondelmonte
at the beginning of the thirteenth. For us it is
enough to remember how we have found the lintel
and horseshoe arch important elements in the
stilting of door-heads at Lucca, and to notice that
here at San Stefano of Florence these are singu¬
larly combined to serve the same purpose.

Before leaving San Stefano it may be well to
notice another detail, which confirms in a remark¬
able way the view we are about to take of the real
nature and history of the horseshoe arch. That
it was invented as a peculiarly happy and orna¬
mental mode of stilting the Romanesque arch, may
be proved from the classic mode of its construc¬
tion. In Spain, where, as is well known, this
arch attained extraordinary development under

* Other examples of the horseshoe arch at Lucca may be seen
in the Annunziata Gate and — very remarkably — in the west face
of the Campanile of San Pietro Somaldi. These, however, like
the pointed arches of San Paolo at Pisa, would seem to have
been built for no other reason than that of fashion or delight in
the form for its beauty's sake.

Forms of the Tuscan Arch.

DOOR OF TORRE DELLE ORE — LUCCA.

the Moors, only the upper part of the horseshoe
? — barely half the curve — was built as a true arch,
that is, with radiating voussoirs. The rest, and
in it all that is most characteristic of this beauti¬
ful form, was composed of stones or bricks laid
level in the usual courses of the wall, but allowed
to project more and more and dressed to the
curve desired. Now this very form of construc¬
tion may be seen at San Stefano. The intrados
of the horseshoe, as we have noted already, needs
and has no more than the inevitable lines of the
lintel voussoirs for its definition. But the course
of the moulding which prolongs the extrados and
passes down through the lintel, cuts across the
joints of stones laid horizontally and dressed at
the ends to meet the angle of the first voussoir of

the lintel on each side. Thus here, as in the
classic Spanish examples of this arch,* the horse¬
shoe proclaims itself by its internal construction
for what indeed it is ; the most striking form ever
given to the supports of a stilted arch.

Much that we have already noticed is now of
service, if we choose to inquire whence it was
that the Italians derived the arch forms which
they used with such subtlety and effect. Not
only the horseshoe arch at San Stefano, but the
whole character of that doorway with its sur¬
rounding ornament is oriental, and that to such a
degree as to suggest at once an influence of the

* Such as the Moorish gateway at Burgos, the Puerta de
Justicia of the Alhambra, and the Puerta del Sol, Toledo, to
mention only a few well-known cases.

Forms of the Tuscan Arch

SOUTH FACADE ARCH— SAN MARTINO, LUCCA.

EXTERNAL ARCH — PORTA DELL’ ANNUNZIATA, LUCCA.

Forms of the T us can Arch.

WEST DOOR — S. STEFANO, FLORENCE.

Saracenic architecture upon the Italian. And
this idea is confirmed when we remember the
geographical position of Pisa and Lucca, where
the forms of the pointed and the horseshoe arch
undoubtedly prevailed from early times. May it
not well have been that like the silk and dyestuffs
of the Levant these new and charming forms of
arch here first reached Italian soil, and hence
spread through the breadth of Tuscany, affecting
Umbria on the south, and on the north even
crossing the Apennines to Modena, where there
is still a distinct trace of their early influence.*
Thus our view would be, that so introduced, these
forms of arch became early known over a con¬
siderable part of Italy, and were soon combined
with the native Romanesque so as to result in the
subtle and remarkable arches which we set out by
describing.

* In the fa9ade of the Duomo where we find a remarkable
arcade of horseshoe arches.

Yet the matter is not quite so simple as this,
and an enquiry into origins, however brief, would
be faulty did it take no account of other facts
pointing to a further and perhaps the ultimate
source of at least one if not both of the forms in
question. In the Baptistery of Venice is to be
seen a carved slab of marble, which came from
the early church built on that site in the first half
of the ninth century. The carving betrays, as we
should expect, a Greek chisel, yet on one face of
the slab stands, clear and unmistakable, above a
pair of columns with Byzantine basketwork
capitals, the characteristic form of the horseshoe
arch.* If then, by way of Pisa and Lucca, Tus¬
cany and Umbria at large received from the
Saracens elements of design which profoundly
influenced their native practice, we are yet to look
to Byzantium as the place where in all probability

* This slab has been figured and described by Cattanej,
L’Architettura in Italia,” Venice, Ongania, 1888, p. 250.

Forms of the Tuscan Arch

CAMPANILE ARCH, S. PIERO SOMALDI, LUCCA.

these forms were first tried since the Christian era
and on European soil.

Think of the peculiar character of Byzantium in
this connection : for, indeed, if architecture be the
unconscious expression of an age’s mind, this can
by no means be left out of account. The capital
of the Eastern Empire was founded to be a better
and grander Rome. To surpass the glories of the
West was the daily dream of those who lived by
the Bosphorus. And surely, inevitably, this
desire to surmount and surpass found its lasting
expression in a new style of architecture — the
Byzantine — when at last the serene height and
beauty of St. Sophia’s dome spread above sup¬
porting arches, whose form was still that of Rome.
The triumph of the new style was not won in a
day, however, nor reached without many an
experiment, in which the builders of Byzantium
strove for increased height in their arches before
fixing on a dominant cupola as the best expres¬
sion of their mind and the nation’s spirit. In

Greece hard by, the tombs of prehistoric kings
might have furnished them with the form, if not
the true structure of the pointed arch, while our
Venetian example shows that Byzantium knew,
perhaps from Asiatic teachers, the effect to be
gained by stilting in the form of a horseshoe the
round-headed arch of Rome. Such devices, then,
we may believe Byzantine builders had tried and
had discarded. They do not enter into the
substance of that style, which gains its effect of
height rather by multiplying arcades one over the
other to crown the whole at last with a wondrous
dome. But though discarded at Byzantium, these
forms were not forgotten nor lost, and at last, in
the outskirts of that vast empire and by the banks
of Nile, they had their renaissance, and came to
their kingdom.

The Copts who served the followers of Moham¬
med, untrained yet in the arts, as the architects
of their first mosques were under the influence of
Byzantium, and in their work done for the new

Current A rchitecture.

conquerors appear for the first time in clear relief
along with the Byzantine dome, the twin forms
of the pointed and horseshoe arch. Well suited
to a style which, while availing itself to the utmost
of the profusion of marble columns which every
ancient site afforded, aimed above all at an effect
of lightness and height, these arches rose along
the African coast far as the victorious Saracen
pressed, till in Spain the horseshoe had the final
advantage, and became in Moorish hands the
characteristic note of a style not to be surpassed
for dainty elegance. But all this may surely be
regarded as but the subtle elaboration brought at
last by Arabian minds to themes borrowed from
Greek, and perhaps ultimately from Indian
sources.

Much there is which must always remain diffi¬
cult and obscure in every attempt to trace the
ultimate origin of these architectural forms ; but
their nearer history grows increasingly clear, and
the part which Italy played in their extension
and development is plain enough. If Spain in
her Moorish provinces may claim the perfection
of the horseshoe arch and of the style which was
founded upon it, France has undoubtedly the
credit of first working out the possibilities of the
pointed style, and by the banks of the Seine began
what is generally called Gothic architecture. Yet
Italy, as a natural consequence of her situation in
regard to the nearer East, had the advantage of
receiving these forms in their first and most direct
importation. Her builders played with them out
of sheer delight in their novel beauty, as in the
south door-head of the fapade of San Paolo at
Pisa (pointed), or the campanile arch of San Piero
Somaldi at Lucca (horseshoe) ; they used them as
convenient ways of overcoming constructive diffi¬
culties as in the aisles of Pisa Cathedral or the
porch of San Martino at Lucca ; finally, in their
hands these twin arch forms subtly combined and
varied became the prevalent Tuscan fashion for
the extrados of window and door-heads. At
Siena, where perhaps this style reached its acme,
and where, therefore, the chances of further

development were greatest, at least one church
remains to form an indubitable link between the
extremes we have been considering. Built during
the twelfth century in the pointed style, it recalls
on the one hand the Mosque of Fostat, and on
the other carries us on to the developments of the
pointed arch which took place on French soil.
So near did Italy come to the glories of the
Gothic style.

The reason why Italian architecture held a
merely intermediate and subordinate place in the
development of the pointed arch is plainly to be
seen in almost all the examples we have noticed
in this paper. When the forms of the pointed or
the horseshoe arch reached Italy they were used
by the Italians either out of mere delight in their
ornamental effect or in their strict subservience to
the round arches of the native Romanesque.
Never does it seem to have entered Italian minds,
unless for a brief moment at Siena, that the fun¬
damental form of an arch could be other than the
semicircle. Pointed as a leaf above, or bent to
a horseshoe shape below, the line of the extrados
during all these centuries was a thing to be played
with at will, while still, beneath, the intrados
stood fast in the stubborn form and force of
ancient Roman building. Even when, dazzled for
a little by the imported glories of Milan and
Assisi, Italian builders yielded so far as to dream
a brief Gothic of their own, the style was in
decadence almost as soon as born, and carried in
itself clear signs of the coming age. The door-
head of the Florentine Bigallo, altogether pointed
in form, is still by the lines of its voussoirs struc¬
turally Romanesque, and precious, therefore, as
showing the last stronghold of the semicircular
arch which expands hard by in the Loggia, where
Orgagna (if indeed he built it) was bold to discard
the cusped ornaments of his tabernacle in Or San
Michele, and let his work stand free in the
strength of the coming Renaissance. Roman,
Romanesque, and Renaissance : these are the
three “ R’s ” of Italian architecture.

J. Wood Brown.

Current Architecture.

House at Wendover. — This house has
just been built for Sir Thomas Barlow, Bart. It
stands in a bend of the downs, the entrance front
looking north over the Aylesbury plain. The
piers and railings (shown in the view of this side)
will be connected with the house by yew hedges
when the laying out of the grounds is completed.
The south front will overlook a formal flower
garden, backed by low hills. The house is built

of local red brick and flints, the stonework being
Doulting stone. The roof is tiled. Both bricks
and tiles vary in colour, and are mingled at
hazard, with the object of keeping the house as
quiet in tone as possible, the site being bare of
trees.

The architects are Messrs. Marshall and
Vickers ; the builders, Messrs. Webster and
Cannon, of Aylesbury.

C u rren t A rch it edit re .

HOUSE AT WEN DOVER, BUCKS. ENTRANCE FRONT.
MARSHALL AND VICKERS, ARCHITECTS.

Current A rchitecture

MARSHALL AND VICKERS,

Current Architecture.

CROVND FLOOR ■ PLAN •

^ : ) I,,? _ I? _ m _ 22 _ tZ _ _ 5L

HOUSE AT WENDOVEK, BUCKS.

MARSHALL AND VICKERS, ARCHITECTS.

Lodge and Entrance Gates, Foots
Cray Place, Kent. — This forms the
principal entrance to a fine Classic
mansion erected in 1750, now the resi¬
dence of Mr. S. J. Waring, jun. The
external walls are of Bath stone (Monks
Park), lined with brick in cement, a 2-in.
cavity intervening ; the internal walls
are also of brick in cement. The
roof is covered with green Westmore¬
land slates from the “ Tilberthwaite ”
quarries ; the ridge is of lead. The
windows are filled in with wood sashes

painted white, and doors painted a pale
green ; the rain-water pipes and heads
are of wrought lead to special design.
The work was executed by Mr. Thomas
Knight, builder, of Sidcup, the en¬
trance gates, which are of fine wrought-
iron work, being by Messrs. Singer and
Sons, of Frome ; all specially designed by
the Architect, Mr. R. Frank Atkinson.

PI an

5cale

feet"

PLAN OF LODGE AND ENTRANCE GATES, FOOTS CRAY PLACE, KENT.
R. FRANK ATKINSON, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecturc

VOL. XIII.— F

FRANK ATKINSON, ARCHITECT.

Books.

'JpHE DICTIONARY OF ARCHITECTURE.

,:A Dictionary of Architecture and Building; Biographical,
Historical, and Descriptive." Edited by Russell Sturgis, A.M.,
Ph. D. In 3 Vols., price 25s. each net. London: Macmillan
& Co., Limited.

The “ Dictionary of Architecture and Build¬
ing,” which Mr. Russell Sturgis and his fellow-workers
have produced, is an unusually interesting and com¬
plete book of reference. The articles cover a very
wide range, and the most important are written by
men whose names are a guarantee of historical ac¬
curacy. The administrative aspect of the “ business ”
of modern architecture has but an ephemeral interest,
and might perhaps with advantage have been pre¬
sented in a more condensed form. The only English
work of the kind, “The Dictionary of Architecture,”
compiled by the Architectural Publication Society,
has the disadvantage of being in six large volumes,
and is not so well arranged for reference ; its informa¬
tion on many subjects is moreover already a little
antiquated. The aim of the new Dictionary is to be
not only extremely handy and thoroughly up to date,
but by means of “alphabetical arrangement carried
to minute sub-division and cross-references in abund¬
ance ” to make it easy for the student to obtain an
outline of a subject, and also to compile a list of most
of the works bearing on it.

Mr. Russell Sturgis and Mr. Robert Gibson deal
respectively with the architect in America and Eng¬
land. These articles are concerned mainly with his
training and functions as a “professional man”; we
gather that in America he is nowadays “primarily
the fiduciary agent whose business it is to administer
the funds committed to his charge.” In England he
appears still to cherish the rags of tradition, and to
attempt to “ engraft upon the outgrowth of the living
world as much as he can of a past archaeological flora,
even at the sacrifice of some of the more modern
tendencies.” These generalisations may perhaps be
considered more as representing to some extent the
popular view than as a statement of facts. There is,
as we know, a great deal of modern American work
which proves that in reality the American architect
takes his art seriously, and is as little disposed, as are
English architects, to fill the role of entrepreneur.
Indeed, Mr. Montgomery Schuyler, writing in a later
article on the architecture of the United States, em¬
phasises this point, and in criticising the modern
country house claims that the American architect, by
giving to material and methods of construction an
appropriate architectural expression, has really de¬
veloped a vernacular type “which, being of no style,
yet has style.” He even sees great possibilities in
the “tall building,” the qualities of which our insular
minds have been slow to recognise, when the problems
of construction are carried by serious architects beyond
the point which now satisfies the “practitioners.”

It appears, from Mr. Sturgis’s article on bricklay¬
ing, that “trade customs” are not unknown in

America. There is, for example, an amusing little
lament that the bricklayer’s “ custom ” is to use the
minimum of mortar, and this is defended on the
grounds that unless there are interstices to allow the
water to trickle away, the internal face will be affected !
The “ custom ” is not wholly confined to America, but
the slower wit of the English workman could never
have invented so ingenious a defence.

The architecture of Asia Minor from the fifth cen¬
tury, b.c., to the end of the twelfth century, a.d., is
dealt with in an interesting article by Mr. Phene
Spiers, who contributes also most valuable accounts
of Imperial Roman, Persian, and Syrian work.

The origin, characteristics and history of Byzantine
architecture are very ably treated by Professor Hamlin,
who presents the subject clearly and concisely. He
considers that the chief distinction of Byzantine archi¬
tecture is “ the revolution in structural design brought
about by the invention of the dome on pendentives,
and Sancta Sophia, its greatest achievement, as one of
the really great buildings of the world.” Owing,
however, to the fact that the Eastern Empire declined
before the culmination of the arts, it never carried the
early principles of construction to their logical con¬
clusion. Professor Hamlin also contributes other
important articles on Indian, Moslem, and Scottish
architecture.

Under the heading “ Church ” is given a useful list
of the principal churches in Europe, with approximate
dates of foundation, notable additions or re-building.

Mr. Lethaby, in his extremely suggestive article on
modern design, lays down as a fundamental principle
“ the expressive use of materials for the satisfaction
of worthy needs,” and insists that old monuments
should be studied as essays in practical building with
a view to estimating the value of their structural
methods for the needs and materials of to-day. We
have been so much accustomed to study architecture
from the archaeological point of view and to its pre¬
sentation as an art of tabulated styles, that we have
almost forgotten that its history is really a record of
the struggles with problems of construction. The
expression of the true constructional functions of
columns, arches, vaults, domes, has inevitably shaped
the building and confined the design or intention of
their builders within the limits of this expression. It
must not, however, be inferred that Mr. Lethaby is
suggesting a retrograde movement, and advocating a
primitive and rudimentary architecture, ignoring all
that has gone before ; he very truly observes that
“ Within the phenomena of the architectural styles
there are certain large principles common to all vital
periods, and it is these principles which will still form
the positive conditions of modern architecture.” And
“ he who at this time knows best what the constant
spirit of past art has been knows best what its future
may be.”

To see ourselves as others see us is always instruc¬
tive, and when that view is in the main so sympa¬
thetic as Mr. Clipston Sturgis’s, there is little to cavil

Books.

at. His article on English architecture is a most
able one. One gathers that the essentially English
character of our national Gothic appeals strongly to
his imagination, while that of France he considers a
more logical, scientific, and complete art. He argues
that the aims of the English cathedral builders and
those of the French were different. He writes, “ The
first impetus of Gothic came as did that of Roman¬
esque from across the Channel” (from Normandy, a
country which he describes as “quite as much English
as it was French ”), “ but like its Norman predecessor,
it took on a distinct impress and character at the
hands of the English. They showed no more enthu¬
siasm over problems of vaulting than they had over
the dome,” and further, “ in all the architectural his¬
tory of England one must be impressed by the fact
that architecture, as a science, was not practised in
England, but that, as an art, it called forth the best
energies of the Nation,” but “with the French, Gothic
was a scientific building, and their superb abilities
were directed, were concentrated on the achievement
of the perfectly balanced vault.” There is doubtless
much truth in this view, but “ art ” and “ science ”
•would seem to be too sharply opposed. The English
domestic work with “ its sobriety, directness of pur¬
pose, its unambitious qualities, and its lack of pre¬
tentiousness,” receives its full measure of praise, but he
is not sparing in his condemnation of the “ superb
foolish and wholly un-English work of Vanbrugh and
the men of the early eighteenth century,” with its
open colonnades entirely unsuited to the English
climate and its wasteful and often embarrassing
symmetry, in fact he does not hesitate to condemn
Blenheim as “ a superb example of folly seeking vain-
gloriously for fine effects, and neglecting wholly the
fundamental aim of sound architecture.” This whole¬
sale condemnation of the English Renaissance work
betrays a bias which, however natural, is a little
out of place in a work of this kind. Of Inigo Jones
and Wren he has little to say, but no record of archi¬
tecture in England can be complete, which ignores
the fine work of these masters, and lumps it with that
of the amateurs and formalists who succeeded them ;
it had a most important influence, and set a type
which was followed throughout the country, a type
moreover which was definitely English. In his general
summing up, Mr. Sturgis pays this flattering tribute
to the national character of our architecture: “Not¬
withstanding shortcomings and faults, no country
contains in itself a more precious architectural heri¬
tage than England ; for, if it teaches no great lessons
of art, it is yet instinct with all those qualities that
have made England great, and every stone tells the
history of a people who for all time have stood for
freedom and justice, for honesty and uprightness.”
It seems a little ungracious in the face of such a
testimonial to take exception to the opinion that our
architecture teaches no great lessons in art. We are
all probably agreed that the science of French Gothic
was ahead of that of England, and experiment was
indeed carried to the extreme verge of safety ; but as
an expressive building art English Gothic has cer¬

tainly many lessons to teach. Mr. Clipstone Sturgis
also contributes a short article on “ English Roman¬
esque.”

Mr. W. P. P. Longfellow in his article on Greco-
Roman Architecture, attempts the defence of the
Romans against the charge of having tampered with
the sanctity of the Greek orders ; he does not deny the
fact, but points out that the Romans were not artists
in form as were the Greeks ; they accepted “ the
orders ” as their natural heritage, but could not be
content with the limitations imposed by them ; he
considers, however, that the result fully justified the
departure from strict tradition, and that Roman archi¬
tecture is “ a much greater intellectual achievement,’
“its problems were more complex and difficult, its
conceptions grander, its combinations more inventive
and interesting.” Greek work was more limited in
its range than Roman, but it is impossible to imagine
anything more intellectual than its absolute purity and
refined beauty. Having fixed upon the simple post
and lintel treatment they were content to leave it at
that, and lavish their best energies in a constant
refining. They sought no fresh fields for the display
of their building genius, attempted little that was
complex. As Mr. Longfellow says, “The habit of
cumulative design seems to have been foreign to the
Greeks ; of Roman architecture, as would appear, this
was the strong side, and it is doubtful whether any¬
thing has surpassed the majesty of its great combina¬
tions.” We need not defend the Romans for their
vigour and want of delicate perception, nor apologize
for the culture and refinement of the Greeks. The
characters of both came out in their buildings, and it
is quite natural to find them entirely different.

Professor Frothingham, jun., and Mr. S. Sa fiord
Fiske deal exhaustively with the architecture of Italy,
and the fourteen articles treating respectively with
Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia, The
Marches, Tuscany, Umbria, Latium, Abruzzi and
Molise, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria
review the work of each province historically and criti¬
cally instead of dealing with the country as a whole.
Italy is such a vast storehouse of art, and its phases of
architecture are so many and various, that only by
such an arrangement could any clear idea be given
and the difficulty of overlapping be avoided.

Mr. Alexander Graham contributes a most useful
article on the Architecture of North Africa, in which
he says that notwithstanding the labours of many dis¬
tinguished archseologists, “ there cannot be said to be
any continuous history of North Africa as recorded by
its monuments. ’ The remains of the great structural
works in Carthage he attributes to the Greeks, and
considers that the fine arts were not indigenous ; and
although the streets of the old city are still unexca¬
vated, all claim to a native architecture may be
dismissed.

Mr. Russell Sturgis wrestles with the thorny pro¬
blem of “ Restoration,” and the early part of his
article seems almost to be an apologia for the restorer ;

“ it was,” he says, “ natural to remove from a church
of the thirteenth century an organ loft which had been

Books.

put up in the 18th ; ” later on, however, we have the
sounder doctrine that “ Buildings should be stayed up,
fastened together, held in place,” but nothing more;
“ no modern work whatever shall be put upon them
in the way of rebuilding, carving, painting, or the like.”
This is, of course, excellent so far as it goes, but if
nothing is to be added to falsify the history of the
building, neither must its record be mutilated by
removal ; his view that on the whole the restorations
of the great French cathedrals has been judicious can
hardly be endorsed ; many are, or have been, suffering
a deliberate process of scraping and reworking. This
passion for neatness and newness is gradually but
surely destroying their value. Chartres is assuming a
jaunty and youthful air. The priceless glass is being
taken out, washed, flattened, and re-leaded. Almost
everywhere this ruthless “ restoration ” is going on,
and in a few more years the glory of many a fine
building will be no more than a memory.

“Truth in Architecture,” Mr. Henry Rutgers
Marshall defines as “ The expression, in design, of the
essential facts of the plan and structure.” He then
goes on to say that although “there is a great aesthetic
value in certain expressions of constructional function,
to claim that the expression of constructional function
is necessarily aesthetic is certainly impossible, for,
were this true, all scientific engineering would have
architectural value, which manifestly is not the case.”
It is doubtful if anyone has seriously claimed this, and
it is quite true, of course, that an engineering work of
merely mathematical exactness may have little or no
aesthetic value ; but French engineers, at any rate,
have added to this scientific exactness a certain grace,
an almost Greek refinement and nice adjustment of
parts, and have produced iron structures, which,
although we may be shy of calling them architecture,
have nevertheless a distinct beauty “ after their kind,”
a beauty as different from that of a stone building, as
both the material and its possibilities are different.
The conclusion he arrives at is that “ this construc¬
tional and practical worth may quite properly be
subordinated to other elements which are incom¬
patible with it, provided that the latter, without it,
are capable of producing aesthetic results which with
it would be impossible of achievement.” This seems
to mean that the constructional expression may be
ignored if it happens to interfere with a preconceived
“ design.” It is difficult to understand how a building
can be aesthetically satisfying when the expression of
its chief function is deliberately subordinated.

The book is very fully illustrated by a large number
of excellent photographs and drawings ; many of the
latter are of English origin and of familiar aspect.
By a curious oversight, Nesfield, whose book
“Sketches from France and Italy,” has been very
largely drawn upon, and whose position as an archi¬
tect of undisputed talent gives him a place among the
“ Immortals,” receives no biographical notice, al¬
though scattered throughout the Dictionary are many
short accounts of the life and work of men of less
eminence. The articles, as a whole, are adequate,
and many of them are of exceptional interest.

Mr. Russell Sturgis has not only proved himself to be
a most skilful and tactful editor, but has also con¬
tributed a great many useful and able articles, in
addition to nine out of the ten devoted to the archi¬
tecture of France ; and he is to be congratulated on
the completion of a work which contains much new
matter, is excellently arranged, and is as complete on
the scientific aspect of architecture, and the “ profes¬
sional practice ” of to-day, as it is in everything
dealing with its history.

Ernest Newton.

pRA ANGELICO.

“Fra Angelico.” By Langton Douglas. Second Edition,
25 . nett. London : George Bell and Sons.

One quiet Sunday afternoon in San Silvestro
on Monte Cavallo, Michael Angelo was talking with
his friends of religious painting, and he is reported to
have said that “ in order to imitate to some extent
the venerated image of our Lord it is not sufficient
merely to be a great master in painting, and very
wise, but I think that it is necessary for the painter to
be very good in his mode of life, or even, if that were
possible, a saint, so that the Holy Spirit may inspire
his intellect.” We are persuaded that the great
master had the Blessed Fra Angelico in his mind
when he spoke these words, for the saying is true of
him in both kinds — the master of San Marco was as
good a painter as he was a monk ; and we welcome
this new edition of the Monograph by Mr. Langton
Douglas because he says so ; as far as we know, he is
the first who has said so, plainly, since the time of
Giorgio Vasari. Mr. Langton Douglas would not
have us forget the judgment of the delightful bio¬
grapher, for he quotes the words we are thinking of
at the very beginning of the introduction: “Fra
Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole . . . was no less pre¬
eminent as a painter and miniaturist than as a
religious.” Mr. Langton Douglas makes an excel¬
lent remark at the end of Note 3, pp. 89, 90 : “Critics
and commentators are too ready to conclude that they
have convicted Vasari of inaccuracy.” We should
like to see this sentiment expressed under the middle
paragraph of page 3, “ And if a rich afterglow affected
the imaginations of those Dominicans who in the
succeeding age drew Fra Angelico’s portrait, surely
the colour that the picture thus gained would lose
nothing at the hands of Giorgio Vasari ! He was too
fine a literary artist to spoil a beautiful story at the
bidding of historical truth.” We do not believe a bit
of it. Vasari never darkened counsel with words: he
told us plainly what he thought and what the gossips
of the Florentine workshops thought, in all singleness
of heart ; mistakes he made, but they were due to
slips of memory, to wrong information and to lack of
time, for unfortunately he was very busy over his
architecture and painting ; let us not slander him by
calling him a “ literary artist ” if that means saying

Books.

8 1

what he knew to be untrue. For our part we can
believe all he tells us about Fra Angelico, down to the
prayers he uttered whenever he took brush in hand.
Surely many an artist to-day (not only the very
saintly) must pray in secret for power to overcome the
difficulties of his craft. We remember to have heard
hurried cries for help out of the wrestle before their
canvases, both to heaven, and — alas ! that we must
say it — to another place as well.

Mr. Langton Douglas guides us with devoted care
through the long development of his hero ae the artist
adds grace to grace culled from Nature and the an¬
tique, beginning with the miniature-like painting of
his early period, of which the Coronation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary (No. 1,290) in the Uffizi is per¬
haps the finest example ; and ending with the great
histories of Saints Stephen and Laurence on the walls
of the Chapel of Nicolas V. in the Vatican. No
greater stride was ever made by any artist ! Fra
Angelico seems to have been developing to the very
end of his long life, and to have died, a growing boy, at
the age of sixty-eight. We are always astonished
when we see the date of his birth — 1387. Chronolo¬
gically he was the very first of the great revivalists
of the quattro-cento, and, as Mr. Langton Douglas
points out, he led the van of reform, but with such a
gentle spirit that the critics have often classed him as
the last of the Giottesques. His reverent nature
would not throw down all tradition at a blow, but
choosing the best, especially in technique, he infused
new life into worn-out formula. Let any artist make
a drawing of one of the heads of the saints from the
Perugia altar-piece, and he will at once be convinced
of the true mastery of Fra Angelico, his subtle draw¬
ing and modelling, and above all his broad containing
line. He was never a very powerful draughtsman,
but for subtle line and character in young heads he
holds his own with all later artists ; among the latest
an interesting comparison lies with the young Legros,
in his religious works. Even the fine touch of Lorenzo
de Credi ruined Fra Angelico’s altar-pieces at San
Domenico.

One misapprehension we must notice in the descrip¬
tion of the Last Judgment, in the Academy, on
page 51. The angels are said to be dancing “hand-
in-hand ” in the blessed fields full of flowers, whereas
they are dancing hand-in-hand with mortals who
have put on immortality, blessed souls clothed in
bright raiment and crowned with wreaths of roses,
white and red, one soul between every two angels.
The angels may be known by their wings and heavenly
halos. The ceremony appears to be that each soul
shall be individually welcomed to the celestial fields
by his guardian angel (we like to think) ; his angel
leads him as partner to the “ Ballo dei angeli,” and
on completing the round escorts him through rays
of light to the Celestial City, the only exception being
two souls of monks, a Dominican and a Franciscan
(Saint Dominic and Saint Francis), who walk together
in holy converse along the pleasant paths of Paradise.
All this agrees even more closely with the glorious
rondel, may we call it, of Jacopone da Todi, which

is rightly quoted in full, and might be printed in
golden letters : —

“ In quella rota vanno i santi
Et li angiol’ tutti quanti — ”

One other point we think Mr. Langton Douglas
does not allude to, but it may be that his greater
knowledge of the Giottesques silences him. We
believe Fra Angelico was the first to illuminate
heaven from the Source of all light. The light in his
picture of the Risen Christ surrounded by His Saints
(No. 663), in the National Gallery, radiates from the
figure of Christ, the saints and angels on His right
are lit from the right, those on His left from the left ;
and so also in the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin
Mary (No. 1,290) in the Uffizi, the rays of light follow
the engraved lines of the glory behind the Christ. As
a rule Fra Angelico insists upon the Giottesque prin¬
ciple of lighting his wall-paintings from the light of
the building in which they are painted to a most
realistic extreme, as, for instance, in the very long
cast shadows to the capitals of the pilasters in the
picture of the Madonna of the Corridor in San Marco,
where the faces too are lit with a raking light, any¬
thing but becoming, as if they were really standing
there illuminated by the distant window at the end of
the corridor. The good Frate was, however, in a
difficulty when he painted the great Transfiguration
in one of the cells near by. Here the supernatural
personages are lit from the direction of the natural
light, the window of the cell, and so are the three
Apostles at the foot ; the Saint Peter comes aright,
for he is beyond the Christ, and the lighting does not
contradict the glory of the Transfiguration ; Saint John,
however, is between the Christ and the window of the
cell, but his face receives a strong reflected light from
the glory.

All the wonderful light effects in these paintings in
San Marco are produced by the simplest means, the
Crucifixion in the Corridor, for instance, is painted
with the fewest possible colours ; the light grey
plaster ground forms the greater part of the sky,
landscape and middle tint of the light part of the robe
of Saint Dominic, the shadows are lightly drawn in
brown and the high lights put on with fine strokes of
white, making as solid a monk as we could wish. The
portraits of Saint Dominic at the foot of the Cross, so
often repeated, are all different ; can it be that they
are portraits of the monks occupying the cells in the
painter’s time ?

The Frate’s naturalistic treatment of the naked
human figure is religious in its exactitude, down to
the very hair growing on the body, which is drawn and
copied from nature hair by hair with a decorative
devotion to truth, even in these pictures of the Cruci¬
fied Saviour. Another instance of naturalism is the
way the grain of the wood is differentiated in the
crosses, and especially in the ladder used at the Depo¬
sition, in the Academy ; the rungs are of a different
wood to the uprights ; the nails, too, in this picture
are silvered to make them more real. The painting of
the saints and angels in the frame of this picture is so
beautiful that it may be compared to the painting of

Correspondence .

the flowers in the frame of the Gentile da Fabriano
opposite, but the Fra Angelico is as light as the Gen¬
tile is dark.

To date a picture from the architecture represented
in it would, we fancy, be rather a dangerous expedient,
but we confess it appears to lead to just conclusions in
this instance. It is so easy for a painter to try fan¬
tastic experiments with bricks and mortar that he may
sometimes record ideas of architecture before they
were put into solid form, especially when architect
and painter were the same person, as was often the
case. We seem to remember classical details and
even “obtuse-angled pediments ” in Giotto, and pin¬
nacles surmounted by classical statues.

We think it was unnecessary for Mr. Langton
Douglas to depreciate the Florentine School “ from
Uccello to Michael Angelo,” as he does in his “ Con¬
clusions ” in order to exalt his hero. The works of
these great artists are not to be circumscribed by our
modern cant of pictorial and literary motives ; as long
as the scientific or even literary ideas are treated with
the artist spirit they are good in painting, as, for
instance, the perspective pictures of Pietro di Borgo
and the fables of Bellini, to take other schools than
the Florentine. Or, again, the wrestle of Hercules
with Antaeus by Pollaiuolo of that school — all depends
on the way it is done.

The interesting pages referring to landscape art are
not convincing to us, at least as regards the effects of
distance ; we do not feel the power of the third
dimension of space in any Florentine work. Fra
Angelico, Alessio Baldovinetti, and all of them, made

their distances by adding small quantities of white
and grey to each plane as it receded ; even the limit¬
less atmospheres of Lionardo da Vinci affect us much
in the same way as the series of planes of shallower
and shallower relief in the gates of Ghiberti, and not
as the actual space of Titian’s backgrounds.

We quite agree with Mr. Langton Douglas in his
contention that Benozzo Gozzoli had little to do with
the frescoes in the Chapel of Nicolas V. Never in all
his life, even in his best time, could Benozzo Gozzoli
have designed such big backgrounds or such grand
and simple figures as may there be seen, the final
work of his master, Fra Angelico. Vasari was right
when he described Benozzo Gozzoli : “ Although he
was not of great excellence as compared with many
who surpassed him in design, yet he distanced others
of his age by his perseverance, and among the quantity
of works produced some are necessarily good,” good
to us that may mean ; he painted at least something
loved by each one of us, so we have a kindly feeling
for him; but his crowded, crumpled towns and his
ill-drawn grimacing figures are as unlike the frescoes
of the chapel of Nicolas V. as the work of a devoted
pupil can be unlike the work of his master.

We have tried to say what we can to support
Mr. Langton Douglas in his contention that Fra
Angelico was a good artist as well as a good man, and
we are glad to see this second edition of his work, for
we hope it means many converts to his teaching, and
no better study than the art of Fra Angelico, in its
purity and soberness, can be recommended to a dis¬
tracted modern.

Charles Holroyd.

Correspondence.

We insert the following correspondence relating to
the articles on the Cathedral of Siena, (i) by Mrs.
Richter (The Architectural Review, September,
1901) and (2) by Professor Langton Douglas (The
Architectural Review, November, 1902).

I. — BY LOUISE M. RICHTER.

It has been said, and not without reason, that
the Duomo of Siena is an edifice that bears the evi¬
dence of its date in itself. There is certainly no doubt
that, like other sacred buildings in Italy, “ it grew out
of an earlier construction by successive modifications
and additions.” * We can only solve the question,
why it has been built such as it stands before us now,
by concluding that final results must have been quite
unpremeditated in its original design. To what an
extent some of the earlier elements of Gothic art have
been grafted on the existing Lombard-Romanesque
stock, is proved, for instance, by the ribbed vaultings
which are brought together with functional groupings
of support in the interior. Charles Herbert Moore, in
referring to the Cathedral of Siena as the first in

* Norton “Historical Studies of Church Building,’’ p. 91.

date amongst the more important Gothic buildings
in Italy, goes even so far as to say that in the interior
it exhibits no more advanced organic character than
the naves of St. Ambrogio of Milan and of San
Michele of Pavia — both supposed to have been built
200 years earlier. This amply proves how much the
Sienese Cathedral has retained its Lombard-Roman¬
esque character. But it is, therefore, none the less
Gothic in its architecture, since it has been shown I
that Gothic is an art, not only derived from Roman¬
esque, but that it is Romanesque completely de¬
veloped.

In default of reliable documentary evidence we must
judge architecture by very much the same rules of art
criticism that guide us in judging old pictures which
bear no name and no date. The statement of Mala-
volti, a Sienese historian of the time of the Renais¬
sance, that a new cathedral was begun at Siena in
1245, has no other documentary support, except that
money was spent on the Duomo and workmen paid in

* •' Development and Character of Gothic Architecture,’’
P- 275-

f Charles Herbert Moore “ Development and Character of
Gothic Architecture,” p. 9.

Correspondence.

1246. This, according to an entry in the Nuovo
Document!*, may just as likely imply that alterations
with regard to that building were energetically taken
in hand at that time. There is certainly no evidence
to prove that the old Cathedral, which had been dedi¬
cated in the 12th century by the Sienese Pope Alex¬
ander III., was entirely demolished so as to make room
for a new cathedral,! as has been surmised by Mr. Lang-
ton Douglas and other writers on Siena. The evidence
that “ Stilkritik ” affords us, lies, in fact, much rather
the other way. It tells us that in Siena, as was
the case with so many other cathedrals in Italy, the
Duomo underwent a gradual process of modification
and alteration, and that the earlier Gothic elements,
such as are perceptible in the interior of the church,
must have been engrafted on the older structure long
before 1245, and even before the Cistercian monks
built the Abbey churches of Casamari and Fos-
sanova. The same tale is told by the Campanile
built upon the solid foundations of one of those towers
of defence which in the mediaeval times formed so
essential a part of the city.

When the Cistercian monks came to the neighbour¬
hood of Siena to build the abbey church of San
Galgano, some of them, as is well known, were subse¬
quently summoned to Siena to act as architects of the
Siena Cathedral. Not, however, to transform it after
the model of their church at San Galgano, but simply
to go on with such alterations as had been begun and
carried on by earlier architects. It was then that
some elements of the Burgundian Gothic were intro¬
duced, now chiefly perceptible on the exterior of the
building.

With Giovanni Pisani came the Pisan influence, so
evident in the decoration of black and white marble.
Later on, in 1315, in order to add a new choir, an
enlargement towards the eastern side of the cathedral
was resolved on, and at the same time also the build¬
ing of a new baptistry, which was to be like the old
one, an integral part of the Cathedral. This work,
begun with great energy under Camaino di Crescen-
tino, was at one time interrupted, but boldly brought
to completion about 1333, in spite of serious terri¬
torial difficulties. We may, therefore, fairly surmise
that also the choir, so essential a part in the functions
of the church, was completed under Camaino di Cres-
centino, who, according to Milanesi, remained in the
service of the Duomo until 1338.! This does not, how¬
ever, exclude that later on again alterations may have
been undertaken with regard to the choir, and not
completed till 1370, as Veri di Donato, not always a
reliable chronicler, states in Muratori.

So anxious were the Sienese to outvie Pisa, Lucca
and the rival city Florence, that again in 1339 they
decided that a new Cathedral should be raised. But
here again the plan was not entirely to demolish what
already existed, but was to be limited to the construc¬
tion of a new nave with double aisles on the southward

* “Nuovo Document! di S. Borgese and L. Baueli,” p. 4.
t Langton Douglas, “ History of Siena,’’ p. 273.
t “ Milanesi Document! ” Tomo I., p. 183.

side of the old nave, which was thus intended to be
converted into a transept. This huge plan, however,
was, as is well known, doomed never to be carried
out.

We may finally state that in Siena, perhaps more
rapidly than in any other Italian Cathedral, did the
northern Gothic subsequently develop into what is
generally styled the Italian Gothic, that lofty and
serene architecture which, instead of superseding its
predecessors, rather clung to the older lines, crowning
the rounded arch with the pointed gable.

But how well the Sienese architects knew also to
create the so-called purer Gothic, is shown by the
eastern much more than by the western facade of
their Duomo, and more especially by those noble ruins
on the south side, now the only record of what might
have been the finest Gothic temple in Italy.

II.— BY LANGTON DOUGLAS.

In my article on Siena Cathedral,* I called in
question two statements of Mrs. Richter in regard to
that building. I also mildly complained that she had
quoted a document not quite accurately, when, in fact,
she had made six mistakes in transcribing a passage
but five or six lines in length. The first assert i m of
hers that I disputed was this : — “ The Cathedral of
Siena is the oldest Gothic building in Italy ; as such
it marks a new era in the history of Italian architec¬
ture, and with it the Gothic style makes its first
appearance on this side of the Alps.” Whatever
signification be assigned to the term “ Gothic,” this
statement, I hold, is indefensible.

The Cathedral of Siena, as Mrs. Richter agrees, is
a Romanesque structure upon which certain Gothic
elements were superimposed. Documents prove that
none of these purely Gothic elements — that is to say,
the clerestory windows, the external decoration, and
the fagade — were of an earlier date than 1259. And,
as the tyro in the study of Gothic architecture knows,
the Gothic churches of Chiaravalie di Castagnola and
Fossanova were then more than half a century old.

Mrs. Richter now contends, however, that the
earlier structural portions of Siena Cathedral are
Gothic because they are Romanesque. “Gothic,”
she quotes — and in a sense the statement is a truism
— “is but Romanesque completely developed.”
Therefore, she concludes, it is right to call a Roman¬
esque church “a Gothic building.” It might just as
reasonably be argued that it is right to call an ape a
man, or a chrysalis a butterfly. But let that pass.
Let us admit for the sake of argument that it is right
to call a Romanesque cathedral a Gothic building, and
let us further admit — an opinion I hold to be even
more erroneous — that the old twelfth-century church
was incorporated in its entirety in the thirteenth-
century Duomo. All this being granted, it yet remains
indefensible to say that with the Siena Cathedral “ the
Gothic style makes its first appearance on the
southern side of the Alps.” For there are many
North Italian buildings in which are to be found all

* The Architectural Review, December, 1902.

Correspondence.

the principal elements common to the Lombard-
Romanesque and the Burgundian-Gothic styles, which
are of a much earlier date than the earliest assigned
to the existing Cathedral of Siena.

The second statement of Mrs. Richter which I
objected to was her assertion that the choir of Siena
Cathedral- the existing choir above the Baptistery —
was finished before 1318. * From the year 1310 to
the year 1318, Camaino da Crescentino was the chief
architect of the Duomo. After that date, up to his death
in 1338, there is evidence to show that he received
at least occasional employment from the Opevai, but
he no more directed the work upon the Cathedral and
Baptistery. Mrs. Richter runs away from her former
statement, and now maintains that the choir was
finished, not in 1318, but about 1333. But this revised
conclusion is as erroneous as her original statement.
For there is clear documentary proof that the choir
above S. Giovanni was yet unfinished in 1356. In a
document of that year, Domenico d’Agostino and
Niccolo di Cecco, two distinguished architects who
had been consulted by the Sienese authorities, advised
the Opevai “ to complete the addition which is above
San Giovanni, on which men are now at work.”f

Mrs. Richter attempts to strengthen her untenable
“surmise” by unjustifiably throwing discredit upon
Neri di Donato’s veracity. She is probably not
aware that Neri was living in Siena at the time when
the present choir and facade were being built, and that
he took an intelligent interest in the architectural

work that was being carried on. Neri is in the best
sense of the term, a first-hand witness, for he was
a diarist rather than a chronicler ; and no competent
historian capable of dealing with documentary sources
has ever regarded him as an unreliable authority on
the local events of his own time.

Mrs. Richter again shows an inadequate knowledge
of the documentary evidence relating to the history of
the Duomo, in her reference to the great unfinished
cathedral that the Sienese planned in the fourteenth
century. She states that this plan was “ limited to
the construction of a new nave.” That, it is true,
was the original plan, but it was soon found to be
impracticable : it was discovered that, in order to
complete this new church, it would be necessary to
pull down the campanile, the cupola, and all the
vaults of the old church.” J It is always a matter
of surprise to me that practical architects could ever
have arrived at any other conclusion. This work of
destruction was never carried out. For the Sienese
were unable to realise their great plan, and they

* Richter: Siena, Berlin and Leipzig, 1901, p. 37: — XJnter
Camainos Leitung ( bis 1318) scheint der Chovbau zu ende gefuhrt zu
sein. . . . Fortunately Mrs. Richter's admirable account of

Sienese art contains few mistakes of this kind.

f Arch, di Stato, Siena, Arch, dell' i pera del Duomo, Libro di
Documenti Artistici, Documento, No. 5. See Milanesi, Documenti,
Tomo I„ p. 252.

+ See the document referred to above. Milanesi, op. cit„
Tomo I., p 252.

decided to complete and to beautify the older Duomo,
the present Cathedral.

It is possible that some portion of the twelfth-
century church, of which I have spoken in my
History of Siena, was incorporated in the great
cathedral which the Sienese began to build in honour¬
able rivalry with neighbouring cities, in the great age
of the communes, the thirteenth century. But both
documents and stilkritik alike, show that but a very
small part of the church Alexander III is said to
have consecrated, can have been embodied in the
thirteenth century edifice. The application of stilkritik
has led those architectural experts of America, France,
and England who have written fully upon the subject
of Siena Cathedral, to speak of it as a thirteenth
century building. Moreover, Mrs. Richter herself, in
her Siena, published in 1901, speaks of the “new
church ”* that the Sienese began in “ the thirteenth
century.” This conclusion she herself arrived at by the
methods of stilkritik after two lengthy periods of resi¬
dence in Siena. And it is this new church that she
said was “the oldest Gothic building in Italy.”
Rather than confess her mistake, she now denies the
results of her previous prolonged study of the Duomo ;
and, although she has not, I understand, visited Siena
since her book was published, advances the theory
that a great part of the twelfth-century church was
preserved. For the same reason, she includes the
Romanesque style under the term Gothic.

But, in reality, Mrs. Richter still gives the existing
“Gothic” church a later date even than I do! In
my article I showed that the employment of layers of
black and white marble which prevails in the most
essential parts of the structure of the Cathedral was
due to Pisan influence.! Mrs. Richter now seeks “to
go one better,” if I may say so without discourtesy,
and asserts that this feature in the Cathedral is due to
Giovanni Pisano ! J Mrs. Richter’s use of stilkritik
leads to curious results. She admits that the pointed
windows of the clerestory were the work of Cistercian
architects, and were built between 1259 and 1272.
But the striped piers which support the clerestory
were not completed, she holds, until after 1288, the
year in which Giovanni Pisano was appointed chief
architect. From which it follows that an application
of critical tests leads to the conclusion that Siena in
the thirteenth century was a kind of topsy-turvy
land, and that the building of the Duomo began at
the top.

* Das neue Gotteshaus — Richter, Siena, 1901, p. 34-
f See The Architectural Review, November, 1902, pp. 183
and 184.

+ Contemporary documents prove that these stripes were in
existence long before Giovanni Pisano was born. In my History
of Siena, and also in my article in this Review, I stated that the
date when the thirteenth century church was begun was un¬
known. I have now in my possession documentary evidence,
which I shall shortly publish, pointing to the conclusion that
this church was begun in the third decade of the thirteenth
century,

THE ARCHITECTURAL

REVIEW, MARCH,
I903, VOLUME XIII.
NO. 76.

FIG. i.— ALFRED STEVENS’S FULL-SIZE MODEL IN PLASTER
EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

AS DESIGNED TO BE SEEN

FROM THE NAVF.

The Wellington Monument of Alfred

Stevens.

A Description, with Illustrations, of the existing Models and Drawings

for the Equestrian Statue.

I do not propose, in the present notice, to
return upon the personal and official history of
the Wellington Monument, or to enter upon the
personal issues raised by the action of the Com-
miitee for its completion ; my object is to place
before the public, so far as it can be done by illus¬
trations, with explanatory notes, the material
from the hand of Stevens that exists for carrying
out the equestrian statue, and for tracing the his¬
tory of the design. In the absence of ocular
evidence, statements on one side or the other
cannot be checked, and the reader is confused
by words like “ sketch ” and “ model,” which do
not convey to him any exact idea of the facts.
The small sketch-model, made for the competi¬
tion in 1857, familiar enough to visitors at the
South Kensington Museum ; but very few people
have ever seen the full-size model, the work of
Stevens’s later years. It has been preserved, since
his death, in the crypt of St. Paul’s ; the casual
visitor did not see it there, because it was covered
up ; and even when it was uncovered, the bad
light, its closeness to the wall, and the absence of
the Duke’s head, which Mr. Stannus had sawn
off and preserved separately for greater security,
made it difficult to form an exact idea of the
design and of its condition. A drawing of this
model, by Mr. John Watkins, with the head
still attached, was published in Sir Walter (then
Mr.) Armstrong’s “Alfred Stevens: a Biogra¬
phical Study.* This gives a fair notion of the
general design from one point of view. In 1901 a
small flash-light photograph of the model, as it
appeared in the crypt, was published in Black
and White, and this was re-published recently.
In this, naturally, the head was missing. So far as
I am aware, no other reproduction has appeared,
so that the model is fully published for the first
time in these pages. We have not reproduced
Stevens’s pen-and-ink sketches of the whole

* “ Librairie de 1’Art,” Paris and London, 1881. The sub¬
stance of this book, the first on Stevens, had appeared in
I’Art. It is now out of print, and somewhat scarce. The later
book, by Mr. Hugh Stannus, Alfred Stevens and his Work, is a
folio published by the Autotype Company, 1891, at £6 6s. It
contains a splendid series of reproductions from the artist’s
work, as well as the fullest account of his life that has been
given. No reproduction of the full-sized model of the horse,
however, is included, nor any of the sketch-model or of the
monument as it stands.

monument under the arch at St. Paul’s. They
are exhibited at South Kensington and St. Paul’s,
and a tracing of one of them is given in Mr.
Stannus’s work.

The first care of the Committee, when they had
obtained possession of the large model, was to have
it accurately piece-moulded and thus reproduced in
facsimile. The head was reproduced in the same
way, and fitted on in accordance with the marks
made for this purpose. Stevens’s plaster, which
will remain, of course, absolutely untouched, rests
for the present where it was, till it has been decided
where it can best be disposed for safe keeping and
public inspection. Our photographs are taken
from the facsimile of this model, nothing what-

F1G. 2. — THE EQUESTRIAN HGURE FROM THE SMALL
SKETCH MODEL AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.

(Com fare Fig. 11.)

VOL. XIII.— G 2

The Wellington Monument of Alfred Stevens

FIG. 3.-THE FULL-SIZE MODEL. FRONT VIEW

The Wellington Monument of Alfred Stevens. 89

FIG. 4— THE FULL-SIZE MODEL. ANOTHER VIEW

9°

The Wellington Monument of A Ifred Stevens.

FIG. 5.— THE FULL-SIZE MODEL AS DESIGNED TO BE
SEEN FROM THE NORTH AISLE.

ever having been done to remove even those acci¬
dental roughnesses which arise from the rather
careless joints of the piece-moulding in Stevens’s
plaster. This, then, is the equestrian group so
far as Stevens had completed it, and exactly as it
passed from his studio after his death (Figs. 1, 3,
4> 5)-

The reader is now in a position better to under¬
stand the references made to this model and to
the original sketch-model in the statement of the
Committee’s intentions. It will be seen that in
several particulars the large model is defective. The
near hind hoof is missing, leaving the leg short;
the tail is a mere stump ; the drapery of the Duke

The Wellington Monument of A If red Stevens. 9 1

fig. 6. — donatf.llo’s Gattamelata at padua.
(■ Compare Fig. i.)

is fractured, the fingers of the right hand broken,
and there are some other minor defects, as well as
accidental roughnesses of surface in the plaster.
The sketch-model, however (Figs. 2 and 11), comes
in to supplement the other. In particular it gives
Stevens’s design for the treatment of the horse’s
tail, a beautiful and characteristic feature. It also
supplies the missing hoof, the tip of which touches
the ground and gives a third point of support. It
will be observed that there are variations in
detail between the first sketch and the later
model. The action of the horse differs some¬
what, the near fore-leg being more advanced, with
slightly cabre effect ; more trappings are indicated
in the sketch, the form and covering of the Duke’s
legs is different, and, most noticeable of all, in the
sketch he holds his cocked hat in his right hand
above the horse’s neck, its feathers drooping to
the mane ; in the plaster the hand is simply
placed on the mane of the horse. The bridle,
not actually given, is of course supposed by the
action of the two hands.

I will allow myself a little digression here. If the
reader will compare a photograph of Donatello’s
Gattamelata at Padua (Fig. 6), with this group bv
Stevens he will see where he probably got the plas¬
tic motive of this detail, and indeed of the whole
group. The growth of the one out of the other is
a beautiful instance of how great art usually forms
itself very closely on some preceding work, and is
none the less original. The variations on the action
of horse and man in Stevens’s group are in one
sense slight, yet cumulatively amount to a new
creation. The later design is as new a creature
as the son of a man who preserves much of his
father’s type. Donatello’s Condottiere stretches
out his baton in a line that connects his arm
with the horse’s neck. Stevens, with his eye for

the possibilities of grand design in the ordinary
thing, made the hat serve the same plastic office
in a most interesting and beautiful way. The
motive, moreover, according to a tradition that
Mr. Clayton has preserved, was not only decora¬
tive. The idea was to represent the Duke at the
moment of the final advance at Waterloo, when
he gave the signal for the charge by lifting his
hat.*

In respect of some of these details the evidence
seems to show that Stevens had simplified his
design as time went on. At least we cannot be
sure that he would have reintroduced them into
his final model.

We now find ourselves in face of the question.
How far can this model be regarded as Stevens’s
final and finished design ? His biographers, one
of them closely concerned with him in the last
stages of the monument, state clearly that he
looked forward to the completion of his entire
project, in spite of the refusal by the authorities at
the time to admit the horse. How far can we
accept the existing model as his last word ? To
this question it may be replied that no man can
be certain, with a fastidious lover of perfection
like Stevens, that had he lived he would not have
modified his project even in matters affecting its
general design. But this is certain, that no man
can affirm what changes, if any, of a radical kind
Stevens would have made. We may, therefore,
put aside all this region of conjecture as un¬
profitable. Stevens’s magnificent design is there,
arrested, possibly, in some particulars by his
death ; but in a shape that no living man, even
if he had Stevens’s genius, would have the right
to touch, supposing he had the desire. No
equestrian statue ever erected has escaped criti¬
cism from the point of view of the action and
anatomical details of the horse. Stevens’s will,
like others, be the mark of such criticism. But,
as Mr. Legros has well said, anyone who took in
hand to correct a design by Stevens “ would
cover himself with reprobation and ridicule.”

Discussion, then, limits itself to the condition
of the detailed modelling. How far had Stevens
“finished” his model? Here the fact evidently
is that he had not given the last refinements.
The state of the hoof, the tail, the hands, the
draperies, the mane, the holsters, and much of the
surface modelling, speaks of a stage short of this.
The head, fortunately, had been brought to a

* Mr. Clayton has been good enough to give me the words of
the [chroniclers who vouch for the incident. Hooper writes,
“Wellington was seen to raise his hat with a noble gesture as
the signal for the wasted line of heroes to sweep like a dark
wave, and roll out their lines and columns over the plain."
Cotton, an eye-witness, says more simply, “ The Duke stood on
the ridge immediately in front of the line, with his hat raised in
the air as a signal to advance."

The Wellington Monument of A If red Stevens.

higher state of finish, and is a most interesting
reading of the Duke as portrait sculpture. It is less
the Iron Duke than the portrait on the cenotaph
below, it is a younger and more genial face, and
curiously like in some respects to the sketch by
Goya that is now in the Print Room, and that
was the occasion of the only encounter in which
Wellington was put to flight.*' The rest of the
work had not been wrought to that pitch. Stevens’s
practice was to do a good deal of his final shaping
by work upon the plaster with riffel-files and other
scraping tools. He had probably learned this
method of working under Thorwaldsen, whose
assistant at one time he was, for a set of those
tools belonging to Thorwaldsen is in existence.
Parts of the horse show signs of having been
modelled thus in the plaster, and there can be no
doubt that Stevens would have taken up his
details again and wrought them nearer to the
degree of finish we find in the bronze of the
allegorical groups. On the other hand we must
remember that the horse will be farther from the
eye than these groups, that at the height of the
monument, and in the light of St. Paul’s the dif¬
ference between highly-finished detail, and detail
short of that finish will be hardly discernible, and
we may well suppose that Stevens would have
treated his detail more broadly than in the case
of a group to be seen at the level of the spectator’s
eye. What appears rough, then, in a photograph
of the cast taken in the latter circumstances, does
not represent the effect at the given height, which
will be an effect rather of mass, contour, and main
shadows. All this in Stevens’s model is, thank
God, determined.

Finally, as I have already incidentally observed,
there are certain accidental roughnesses of joints
and surface in the plaster which are merely the
result of imperfect casting, and which there is no
reason for religiously conserving. Even the head
is not free from these marks. I will only add
now, that none of us really know, although we
may surmise, what the effect of the model would
be till it is tried in position, and that it will be
reasonable to postpone all discussion of detail till
that shall have been done.

A word remains to be said about two illus¬
trations (8 and 9) which accompany the photo¬
graphs of the earlier and later models. The first
of these is a drawing by Stevens. I came across
it some years ago when examining the collec¬
tion of Mr. Herbert Singer, by whose courtesy
it is published here. It belongs evidently to the
earlier stages of the design, when Stevens was
debating with himself the form to be given to one

* According to the story, Goya objected to some criticism by
the Duke, and taking down a large sword from the wall, chased
him from the studio.

KIG. 7. — HEAD OF THE DUKE FROM FULL-SIZE MODEL.

or two features of the group. The drawing is not
one of his studies from life, but a rough sketch for
this special purpose. It is in red chalk, and over
this he has made corrections in pencil for most of
the contours, which are not distinguishable in a
monochrome reproduction. In particular, he has-
dropped the hand lower, and seems hesitating
about the hat. He has also taken up the leg and
made a more careful study of that.

The other of these illustrations (Fig. 9) is a
very interesting document. When Stevens had
obtained the commission for the monument, he
considered himself obliged by the terms of it to’
build up a full-sized solid model of the whole
design for trial in situ, a work that cost him
a great deal of time and money. This model was
made partly of wood and partly of clay or plaster-
Of this intermediate model no trace has yet been
found, and the probability is that it was de¬
stroyed. But happily it was photographed, and
one of these photographs has been preserved by
Mr. J. R. Clayton, who has kindly allowed me to-
reproduce it here. There are several interesting
points about this photograph. If the reader will
compare the views we give of the original sketch-
model of the whole monument (Fig. 11) and of
the monument as it now stands in St. Paul's
(Fig. 10), he will see that the architectural form
was considerably modified and the disposition, in
relation to it, of the allegorical groups. There
are different ways possible of reading Stevens’s

JmSF-:

FIG. 8.

The Wellington Monument of Alfred Stevens.

FIG. 9. — VIEW OF THE FULL-SIZE MODEL FOR THE
MONUMENT, IN STEVENS’S STUDIO.

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN POSSESSION OF MR. J. R. CLAYTON, WITH
CORRECTIONS IN PENCIL BY STEVENS.

The Wellington Monument of Alfred Stevens . 95

Photo: S. B. Bolus and Co.

FIG. io.— ‘ THE MONUMENT AS IT NOW STANDS IN ST. PAUL’S.

96 The Wellington Monument of Alfred Stevens.

Photo : S. B. Bolas and Co.

FIG. II. — THE ORIGINAL SKETCH MODEL FOR
THE MONUMENT (SOUTH KENSINGTON).

motive in this change. He may have felt, when
he saw his sketch set up, that it divided into too
many distinct stages above the columns, and that
the allegorical groups dropped too much below
the waist of the design. He accordingly drew
these up nearer the equestrian group, combining
them more closely with the square structure that
forms the present crown of the monument, and
heightening his arch at the same time by giving it
a sort of stilted hood, that breaks over what had
been the base of the superstructure. I think in
designing this feature he must have been influenced
by those curious hooded arches that form so
noticeable a feature in the filling between the
piers of Wren’s dome.

An alternative reading of his motive for the
change that suggests itself to me, is that it was
forced upon Stevens by the fact that his eques¬
trian statue was disallowed. Without it there
was a danger that the square structure designed as
its pedestal would appear unmeaning. He seems,
therefore, to have determined on a compromise
which would allow the monument to look reason¬

ably finished without the horse, and still permit
of the horse eventually taking its place. I think
any designer who compares the part below the
allegorical groups with the same part in the
original project will be driven to this conclusion.
It was here that the compromise had to be paid
for in a rather stretched elongation. The photo¬
graph here reproduced shows Stevens in the act
of making the change. He had already raised
the groups slightly by the gables under them, and
inserted the stilts, and this photograph shows the
whole design at a very fine moment. Over this
photograph he has sketched, in pencil, just trace¬
able in our reproduction, the new disposition of
the arch, and at the same time he has scribbled
over the equestrian model and the allegorical
group. 1 his equestrian model, by the way, wag
evidently a fiat wooden one, enough to give the
silhouette from one side and the other. The
photograph appears to me to have been taken
from a previous one, on which some corrections
in paint had been made, and the sketch of the
cathedral arches had been added in the same way
over the background of Stevens’s studio.

Yet another point is brought out by this photo¬
graph. It will be observed that on either side of
the escutcheon in the square panel are models of
supporting figures that appear neither in the
sketch nor the finished work. These also are
pencilled over, and it is not unlikely that Stevens
may have felt compelled to relinquish a charming
feature for want of funds. It is arguable, of course,
that at the moment he preferred bareness at this
point, in fear of competition with the allegorical
groups. There are studies for the figures in the
corner of Mr. Singer’s drawing, already described,
as well as a sketch for the Valour. It is not beyond
possibility that these models exist somewhere, and
that the present notice may call the attention of
the possessor to their identity.

Stevens also altered the design of the small
pedestal immediately below the horse, and his
drawing for it has been preserved ; but into this
and the question of his intention with regard to
some other details of the monument I will not at
present enter. I shall be glad, however, if anyone
in a position to add details to the known history
of the monument will communicate with me on
the subject. My object here has been to lay
before lovers of art, at the earliest possible mo¬
ment, this our great English Horse and Rider, and
to share with them the joy of its rescue from the
limbus to which it has been so long condemned.
It is hardly necessary to explain that the props
which appear in the photographs are necessary to
support the plaster. They have not been painted
out, to avoid any sort of doctoring of the photo¬
graphs. D. S. MacColl.

Allhallows, Lombard Street.

The proposed destruction of another of
Wren’s City churches, on the grounds that they
have outstayed their usefulness and that their site
has become too valuable for them to cumber it any
longer, wakes up afresh the anxious question as
to what is to be the logical outcome of such
reasoning, and what may remain to be considered
our possessions as each heirloom is taken away
from us on the plea that we are too poor, both in
sentiment and in purse, to maintain it. The
Commissioners appointed under the Union of
Benefices Act, have given in their report to the
Bishop of London, and it is now being considered
by him and by the Dean and Chapter of Canter¬
bury. The report recommends that the church
and site of Allhallows should be sold by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the property
developed in connection with the frontage pre¬
mises in Gracechurch Street. The proceeds, they
suggest, should go to the building of churches in
poor districts under the direction of the Bishop
of London.

It is stated that the Bishop finds himself unable
to withstand the recommendations of this report,
or to do other than his best to further them,

considering the heavy nature of the responsibility
of his charge. The possibilities of useful action
from the proceeds of the sale, so glaringly en¬
forced by the hard glitter of statistics, overwhelm
the less defined actualities of present service, and
the decision becomes too serious to be settled on
any other than the so-called business grounds ;
figures shall be the justification, and by figures it
shall be determined.

But, one asks, Is it right that so much responsi¬
bility should be thrust upon a man, or even a
dean and chapter ? Are our national monuments
to be at the mercy of considerations that are
local rather than national, and our custodians of
them asked to determine their fate, without feel¬
ing free to exercise any further discretion than
what would be allowed by an actuary ?

Here is a case in point. Allhallows Church is
from the hand of Sir Christopher Wren ; it is
(though this is but an accidental piece of colour) his
last work in the City. England will be poorer by
its removal. It can never be replaced. By the
loss of its churches the City becomes less and less
civilised — more sordid and more brutal. The
amenity and the small decencies of the streets are

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. SOUTH SIDE OF THE SCREEN.

Limelight photo : E. Dockree.

4 Zlhallows, Lombard Street ,

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE

Photo : E. Dockree.

Allhallows , Lombard Street

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. THE TOWER

Photo : E. Dockree.

IOO

A ll hall oivs, Lombard Street ,

Limelight photo : E. Dockree.

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. SOUTH-WEST CORNER
OF THE VESTIBULE, SHOWING DOORWAY INTO TORCH.

A I lhallows, Lombard Street.

i o I

Limelight photo : E. Dockree.

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. VIEW FROM NORTH-WEST
CORNER OF VESTIBULE.

VOL. XIII.— H

102

Allhallows , Lombard Street .

Limelight photo : E. Dochvee

STREET. VAULTING OVER VESTIBULE

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD

Allhallows , Lombard Street .

•03

Limelight photo : E. Doc 1 tee

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD ST. OLD GATEWAY TO THE
CHURCH. NOW PRESERVED IN THE PORCH.

H 2

104

A llhcillows, Lombard Street ,

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. THE FONT

Limelight photo : E. Dockree.

Allhallows, Lombard Street.

105

Limelight photo: E. Dockree.

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST.

disappearing, giving place to violent buildings
that are fevered and short-lived. If architecture
has no influence on the swarms that throng the
streets, why go to the expense of putting up costly
architectural fronts to dominate these streets ?
If architecture has an influence, then surely we
should not lessen the number of examples that
we cannot replace, and of whose influence we
cannot define the reach ? Many ingredients go
to constitute the usefulness of a church ; the

temper and habits of the neighbourhood fluctuate ;
the number of people within its walls do not
comprise all its congregations : a church has its
votaries beyond the pew-opener’s ken, and these
votaries have their claims, claims which amount
to rights. Is there to be no provision for such
folk in the City, and are we to add, amongst the
many other signs in Lombard Street, the Bishop’s
Wash-Pot and Shoe ?

Nor is it only the destruction of our national

Allhallows, Lombard Street ,

106

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. THE PULPIT.

A l lh allows, Lombard Street.

1 07

Photo : E. Dockree.

ALLHALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. THE ORGAN.

monuments that we have to deplore, due to the
overweighted responsibility of their guardians ;
they dare not also refuse to accept the gifts from
impulsive unaccredited donors. Anyone may
dump down a sackful of plate upon the altar, or
stick painted glass into the windows of our
architectural masterpieces, provided the money
value of the gift is heavy enough to precipitate

the responsibility of their guardians, which for the
most other while remains unavailable in solution.
And these disastrous additions count as so much
loss to us ; the indelible window darkens our
churches and impairs their usefulness ; the heaped
treasure adds to the anxieties of the church’s
custody, and nothing to the impressiveness of
devotion. The Church ot Allhallows points the

A l l hal lows, Lombard Street.

1 08

moral of the stained glass injury. Some eager
donor has filled all the windows with painted
glass, so completely darkening the church already
obscured by the tall buildings hemming it in on
all sides, that they have had to cut a skylight in
the ceiling, and withal keep a couple of score of
gas lights burning, to counteract their unfortu¬
nate acceptance of this pious donation. Moreover
it is nearly as difficult to remove these additions,
when once placed, as it is to replace a building
when once demolished.

It seems then, that public monuments, such as
our City churches, need putting under a different
guardianship — a guardianship more remote from
the influences of parochial or diocesan considera¬
tions, more tender and reverential of the works
of our fathers “and of the old times before them,”
and more alive to the influences which make
for good in the fret and turmoil of our streets,
and in the want of any inspiring ideal in the
modern architecture that composes them. If the
Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s are open to the
attack of the same logic, how long may we still
count upon seeing our Cathedral standing on so
valuable and so vendible a site ?

It is worth while remembering that there was a
period when St. Paul’s itself was practically a
City church without congregations.

Halsey Ricardo.

Note. — The following facts may be added to Mr. Ricardo’s
argument.

(1) The Rector (Canon Rawlinson) died October 6th, 1902.
There being a vacancy in the living, the trustees of London
Parochial Charities took the opportunity to move for the demo¬
lition of the church, setting forth their reasons in a long letter
to the Times , and stating that a sum of £6,oocr a year could be
realised by the sale of the site of Church and Rectory. The Rec¬
tory, however, is the Langbourn Chop House, let on a long lease,
and if the tenant had to be bought out, the large sum demanded
would much decrease the sum to be realised for the Bishop's
Fund. Moreover, there is No. 18, Gracechurch Street, one of
the houses backing on to the church ; here, again, a lease of
nine years must be met, and the tenant does not at all wish to be
bought out or to move. As the churchyard cannot be built
over because of the Disused Burial Grounds Act, the site is
further curtailed in width. These are but one or two difficulties
to be considered before the £6,000, or even £3,000 or £4,000 can
be thought of.

(2) Ancient Lights. This does not apply really to the
frontage in Gracechurch Street, as Nos. 18, 19, 20, 21, are all in
the hands, now, of the London Parochial Charities. But the
Lombard Street shop owners would probably object to any higher
building than the present church This also applies to the
houses on the west side of Ball’s Alley and the block of offices
which draws light from the narrow court leading to the Lang¬
bourn Chop House.

(3) The Actual Use made of the Church. This has been
greatly misrepresented by the advocates of destruction. The
population is, roughly, 260. The church has an average congre¬
gation of 50 ; and 60 communicants a month. It is open daily
from 11 a m. to 4 p m. for private prayer.

Limelight photo: E. Dockree.

ALI HALLOWS, LOMBARD STREET. THE CIVIC SWORD AND MACE RESTS IN THE CORPORATION PEW.

REMOVED FROM ST. DION IS BACKCHURCH IN 1 878.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

It is a foolish occupation arguing for pre¬
ferences in things supreme, but I have been drawn
to take a special interest in Exeter Cathedral, be¬
cause it is the first that I ever saw. Moreover, its
unusual form, its unity, completeness, and, up to
now, comparative freedom from the falsifications
of restoration, do lend it, perhaps, a peculiar
power and attraction. Its unity has impressed
all writers. Isaak says: — “Yet is the same so
uniformly compacted as if if had been builded by
one man, and done in an instant of time.”

We are now so used to write and read of
“ Gothic,” and of “styles and proportions,” that
we are apt to forget the mystery of it; that just
this thing should have been wrought into stone at
all. Some twenty years ago I was standing be¬
fore the west front of Coutances when two young
architects with the accoutrements of sketchers
came up. They talked together a minute, looked
around, pointed, wagged their heads, and in some
subtle way conveyed to me a sense of their disap¬
proval of the cathedral, and then turned their
backs and sauntered away. Every w’riter on any
one of our cathedrals seems to feel himself called
upon to show that it is not all that it might
have been, and to point out how it could have
been improved. In this respect we are hardly in
advance of a Mr. Ralph, a gentleman of taste of
two centuries ago, who disapproved of West¬
minster Abbey, and pointed out how its defects
of proportion could be remedied by putting a
plaster ceiling at two-thirds of the interior height.
Now all this is absurd, and reminds one of how
the man of science in Fenimore Cooper disap¬
proved of the quadrupeds because they had not
“ rotary levers ” instead of hindlegs.

It is not criticism to object to the Pyramids, or
to wish that the Parthenon had a dome, or to
point out, with Professor Freeman, that Exeter

might have been higher.0 “ You might as well,”
I once heard Morris say, “ criticise a geological
period.” The office of criticism is to know facts,
and to understand conditions, to perceive essen¬
tial truths, to set aside the unreal and trivial, but
to worship that which is worthy. And Exeter is
worthy — a marvellous thing, the spirit of which
will only speak to us through our reverence and
wonder. The noble materials in marble pillars
and stone vault ; the strongly moulded arches ;
the unbroken vista ; the sense of reality, power,
serenity, and fairness, make a whole of amazing
beauty (Fig. i). The sun strikes through the
great windows, and fills the interior with positive
sunlight ; the pillars, set diagonally, allow of full
sight into the aisles, thus making the whole width
effective, and they take the light and shadow in
broad spaces; the arches are easily adjusted to
the piers, and their many mouldings follow the
same diagonal planes as the pillars they rise from.
The dainty triforium is an exquisite foil to the
large clerestory above and the great arches beneath.
The tracery is as beautiful as tracery can be at its
best — romantic yet reasonable, strong yet elegant,
various yet balanced — and the way in which the
quatrefoil balustrade along the window sills allows
the light to filter through its intricacies is per¬
fectly lovely. The vault is unbroken for fifteen
bays, and each severy is supported by a dozen
pairs of stout diverging ribs, without sub-division
or caprice of any sort. The lines are multitudinous
as the timbers of a half-finished ship, and in the
distant vault, the web-fillings appear to be quite
hidden by the stout moulded ribs. The bosses
are rounded masses of intricate foliage like great
nests built in the branches of the vault. The

* Professor Freeman, author of “ Exeter," in Historic Towns
Series, is not to be confounded with Canon Freeman, whose
book with the works of Dr. Oliver, Britton and Carter, must be
the basis of all future study of the cathedral.

EXETER CATHEDRAL,

PLAN

I 10

How Exeter Cathedral was Built .

FIG. i.— THE INTERIOR FROM THE WEST.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

1 1 t

corbels of the vaulting shafts have figure subjects,
the Virgin and Child or a Coronation, the others
foliage : here and there traces of gold and ver¬
milion show how they were decorated. The west
window is magnificently stately ; what a blaze of
splendour must have streamed through it when it
was filled with fourteenth century glass, the
plainer parts of which were fretted over with
white vine-leaves on a ruby field.* All the hun¬
dred windows of the church seem to have been
filled with stained glass, almost the whole of
fourteenth century work ; the east window con¬
tains glass both of the early and late parts of that
century. The clerestory window in the middle of
the north side of the choir retains enough glass to
show that these windows were filled with bright
figures on a grisaille ground. In the head of the
window at the west end of south choir-aisle are
also considerable remnants which furnish some
clue as to the lower tier of win¬
dows. St. Gabriel’s and its com¬
panion chapel have both preserved
much early glass ; the finials of
canopy work in the heads of the
lights show that these originally
had figures like the early portions
of the great east window. In the
clerestory of the nave are to be
seen in several places borders of
fourteenth century work to the
lights which show that the nave
also had early patterned glass
(Fig. 2).t The beauty of it all when
the sun struck through the forest
of tracery may not be told.

Even if you enter the nave by
the west door you must not miss
seeing the north porch, the walls
of which have been but little touched since it was
finished. Traces of colouring, rose-red and white,
remain. In the niche over the door stood a
statue of the Virgin mentioned in 1409. The
vault is carefully built of chalk, the boss is the
Lamb in a wreath of roses, and round the noble
arch-mould of the door runs a trail of roses.
Compare this with the doves in the hollow around
the west door — both have the touch of poetry
common to all the finest ornament.

High up on the left of the nave is the beautiful
“Minstrels’ Gallery” (Fig. 3). On the floor to
the right in the sixth bay was the Courteney
chantry where the fine, but terribly restored tomb,

* Portions remain in this very interesting window, which is
to be sacrificed, I suppose, for a correct twentieth- fourteenth
century example.

f The windows generally are delightful in their present state,
made up with old glass on old lines, if not original : Carter,
a century ago, spoke of them as ancient.

now in the south transept, stood, within what
Westcote describes as “ a sumptuous, curious little
chapel lately taken down.” Before the figures were
scraped they showed traces of gilding and colour.
The knight’s armour was gilt, and on his breast
were blazoned the arms of Courteney. On the
north side, opposite, was the chantry and tomb of
Bishop Brantingham.

To its infinite advantage, Exeter still retains its
pulpitum ( choir screen), called “la Pulpytte” in
the Fabric Rolls (Fig. 4). It is of early fourteenth
century work. The range of niches above, where
at present are some dark post- Reformation paint¬
ings, must originally have held sculptures — almost
certainly a series of the Life of the Virgin.
Amongst the wreckage of carving now in the
cloister, is a fragment of a fine relief of St.
Elizabeth embracing the Virgin, which may very
well have belonged to the sculptures of the pul¬
pitum wrought in 1323-24.* On the loft above
stood the “ organs ” and the great eagle lectern
for the Gospels. Still higher was suspended the
nave rood with the attendant figures of St. Mary
and St. John. Indications of the attachments of
the beam which carried this crucifix have been
found in the walls. ) Beneath it, and in front of
the pulpitum, was the altar of Holy Cross. I To
the right and left were two other nave altars,
those of the Virgin and St. Nicholas (for Exeter
was a seaport town).

The transepts (see Fig. 4) stand under the
Norman towers; in this respect the church is
more like Geneva Cathedral than any other ;
Angouleme has a somewhat similar arrangement,
and Poictiers seems to have been prepared after
the same type. At Exeter, however, it may have
been a purely English development from the
Saxon churches with closed-in transepts. Here
the ancient arches have been enlarged, and the big
traceried windows cut through the Norman walls.
The vaulting of these transepts is in wood. High
up are the delightful stone galleries which climb
out on the air. The clock in the north transept
is ancient and interesting.

In the choir aisles are three stone knights, very
fine — in the battle-harness of Bannockburn. One
is Raleigh or Chichester, his neighbour is Bohun,
and the third is Stapledon. Notice the raised
gesso work of the mail and on the sword-belt ;

* Scott says that the choir door is old, the painting of it old
“ restored.” It is well to know on documentary evidence, as. no
one can be certain when once the restoring machine has passed
over a work of art. The backs of the two recesses in the Screen
were pierced by Scott reluctantly, the former state may be seen
in Britton.

f The veil before the great cross is mentioned in 1402.

+ Oliver puts this in the north tower, but the nave under the
Rood was its position in many other churches.

FIG. 2.

I I 2

How Exeter Cathedral was Built,

Photo : S. B. Bolas and Co.

FIG. 3. — MINSTRELS’ GALLERY, NORTH SIDE OF NAVE.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built,

1 13

FIG. 4.— VIEW ACROSS TRANSEPTS, SHOWING PULPITUM

Photo: S. B. Bolas and Co.

i 14 How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

also the carved heads, which serve as corbels to
the arch of the recess, over the first-named effigrv.

The south choir chapel is that of St. James.
Here is a stately canopied tomb recess. The
other chapel, on the north of the choir, is St.
Andrew's, with another beautiful recess, almost cer¬
tainly for the tomb of Dean Kilkenny (1302). From
the transverse aisle, or Retro choir, open the Lady
Chapel and two side chapels — -St. Gabriel’s on
the south and St. Mary Magdalene’s on the north.
Two little added chantries, late and rich, also open
from the Retro choir. The blue “ star-freckled ”
vaults of St. Gabriel’s and its companion chapel
are in large part original, the patterns of the ribs,
however, are, Scott says, “ foolish additions.”
Directly at the back of the high altar and its
reredos was the feretory, a narrow chamber for the
preservation of relics. A remnant of a small door
which gave access to it may be seen by the corner
of Bishop Stapledon’s tomb. I n the Gabriel chapel
is Bishop Branscombe’s effigy, lying under a later
canopy. This figure is one of the most perfect
works of English sculpture, and must be included
in any selected dozen tomb-statues from the whole
country. After we have picked out a king and a
queen, a knight and a lady, I do not know where
to go for a bishop so grand as this one. Wrought
about 1280, perfect in early maturity of style and
easy mastery of craftsmanship, as well as in pose,
dignity, and feeling ; it was painted to the highest
pitch of the image-painter’s art, and in this is
unrivalled amongst early effigies. It is a thing
superb.* Opposite on the north side is Bishop
Stafford’s tomb.

The Lady chapel is full of points of interest :
the forms are all a little earlier than in the rest
of the church. The tomb recesses are of great
beauty, those to the right containing Purbeck
effigies of early bishops. The arcaded stone stalls
by the altar are also especially noticeable; an
image of the Virgin stood over the altar. Window
tracery and vault are unsurpassable. The painting
of the vault, Scott says, is an exact “reproduc¬
tion ” of what was found.

In the choir the lines and forms are much the
same as in the nave^, but in the eastern bays — the
“ presbytery ” — the carved corbels from which the
vaulting shafts spring, and the bosses of the vault
are even more exquisite. They were wrought just
at the moment when carving burst into full leaf—
the June of architecture — before there was a sign of
the crumpling which evidenced approaching decay.
These carvings of nut, maple, oak, thorn, syca¬
more, vine, and fig, are crisp and fresh as if the
dew were on them. The bosses of the vault have
figure subjects : over the altar is a Coronation of

* A careful drawing of the painting was given in an early
volume of the Trans. Ex. Dioc. Socy.

the Virgin and a Crucifixion, with Mary and John
and sun and moon. Westward are Samson and
the lion, a siren, two dragons fighting, a woman
playing a viol, and a noble king’s head — all
triumphs of romantic beauty. The restored
gildi ng and painting of these bosses represent
pretty faithfully the original; for the rest “the
indications were slight ” and the ribs were imi¬
tated from the Lady chapel. The wall surfaces
seem to have been coated with a soft rose colour ;
some of it may still be seen over the pulpitum on
the north, and also in St. Andrew’s Chapel. The
marble columns, of a colour changing between
grey-purple and grey-green, were polished. Points
like the corbels and caps of triforium were gilded,
and the bosses were highly coloured and gilt like
great enamelled clasps.

On the right of the choir, which had a
marble floor, is the bishop’s throne, which rises
some sixty feet, an oak spire of tabernacle work.0
The misericordes, re-set in the modern stalls,
are the finest series of “ Early English ” wood-
carvings anywhere to be found — foliage, birds and
beasts, knights, fables, and fairy stories. The
stone screen dividing off the aisles is modern
save the open cresting at the top. Scott found
this set on a plain wall which Carter says
was ancient. Further east, by the south side of
the altar, is the triple stone-stall, the presbytery
proper, usually called the sedilia. Here an open
tabernacle of stone is supported on slender brass
columns which seem to be original. Isaak speaks
of it as “ a monument fairly arched, and three
seats, with side pillars of brass, erected to the
memory of King Edward (the Confessor), Edith his
queen, and Leofric the first bishop.” Carter says
the columns were gilded brass. There is reason
to suppose that Leofric was re-buried beneath this
stone seat, for no other tomb is known, and at
Westminster Abbey an old coffin, supposed to be
that of the first founder, was moved to a place
under the sedilia on its erection in 1307, and the
sedilia came to be known as Sebert’s Tomb, just
as the one at Exeter was called Leofric’s Stone. t
On the opposite side of the altar space is the
canopied tomb of Stapledon, the bishop who
finished the works of the choir. It has a fine
effigy, and on the ceiling of the canopy which
surmounts it is a faded painting of Christ dis¬
playing His five wounds. Westward of this is
the early Purbeck tomb of Bishop Marshall.

The ancient high altar and its reredos were, as
we know from the fabric accounts, of extraordi-

* The paintings at the base are said to be “ revived,” but are
as dead as oil-cloth. There appear to have been images in the
open spire- work.

f Lyttleton speaks cf the remains of three paintings of the
Confessor, Queen Edith, and Leofric the bishop, on these stalls.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built ,

nary splendour. Leland says that Bishop Staple-
don made “ the Riche Front of stonework at the
High Altar, and also made the riche silver Tabic
in the middle of it. Yet some say that Bishop
Lacye made this silver Table, but there is no
likelyhood in it.” The “Table” must have
been a silver retable. In 1324 John the Gold¬
smith was paid pro opere tabulce argente, and as
this was something different from the frontal,
which is mentioned separately, it implies, as we
have said, a panel above the altar, which would
have occupied a space similar to a recess in the
Winchester reredos before that was restored.
Above this imagery in beaten silver was the tabla-
tnra lapidis — ranges of niche-work and sculpture — -
rising as high as the points of the arches behind
it,° and spreading over into a vaulted tabernacle
from which hung the golden dove. On either
side of the silver retable probably stood the
famous statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, given
by Bishop Stapledon. When Carter made his
survey the reredos was in position, but the face
had been destroyed. From the top of it a curious
little flight of steps crossed to the east window where
a casement opened, evidently to give access to the
top of the reredos. From the vault of the choir was
suspended a silver corona of lights. All this was
but the setting and background for an appropriate
and impressive ritual, rising at times into such
dramatic festivals as Grandisson’s special ordinals
for Christmas Eve, when, at the first nocturn, a
youth holding a lighted torch appeared in the east
from behind the high altar, and sang, “ Hodie
nobis coelorum Rex de Virgine nasci dignatus
est.” He was then joined by six other choir boys
singing together (in allusion to the song of the
morning stars of Job) “ Gloria in excelsis Deo et
in terra pax ” ; then passing slowly through the
choir they disappeared beyond the western en¬
trance.

II. — The Sculptured Frontispiece.

The western gable rises above a ground- story of
niche-work and sculpture which stands in advance
and includes the three western porches (Fig. 5).
It is usually called the Western Screen, but this
is an unhappy and non-explanatory name. So
far from its purpose being to hide it is to manifest.
It is an external Iconostasis — a sort of title-page
to a great book of doctrine. This work is usually
assigned to Brantingham, 1370-94. Canon Free¬
man says it was completed somewhere between
1377 and 1399 ; but in his analytic plan he shows

* Some marks of the old reredos were found at the last
“ restoration,” see Scott's “ Recollections.” Many vestiges of it
were found about 1815, see Britton. The balustrade under the
east window is modern, done when the reredos was destroyed.

115

it as of fifteenth century work. He writes, how¬
ever, that the only intimation we have of a more
exact date is the statement that 6 ft. of glass at
a shilling per foot were inserted in the vestibule
of the church in 1377-7S. He has before told us
that some work about the great west door, and to
the new chapel next the font (supposed to be
Grandisson’s burial chapel in the west front) was
done as early as 1329-30. In the year before,
thirty-three stones from Silverton, being 80 ft. run
of gutters above the porch, were provided. Free¬
man, however, would, I think, wrongly refer this
to some repair to an old west porch. Again, in
1346, there is an entry for costs of work about the
porches ( adhuc custus porticorum) . Fourteen stones
were also prepared at Wells about the same time
for the “ tablature ” of the porches. Freeman
says that the “ porches ” are here spoken of as
separate, and we must not understand these
entries as referring to the Western Screen, but that
they can only apply to other sculptures, those in
the south porch, for instance. His position
obliges him to speak of the western recesses
severally as porches and to give them the early
date; but he will not allow that “ porticorum ”
applies to them collectively with the niche- work
connecting them. He allows even further that
Grandisson completed the little chapel in the
west front for his own burial (1369). Now the
windows of this chapel are so adjusted in regard
to the niche-work, etc., of the frontispiece that it
seems impossible to suppose that all was not built
together. And indeed the very fact of Grandis¬
son’s burial here in the thickness of the west wall
goes to show that he regarded it as his special
work. The work of the “ porches ” was still in hand
in 1348, when Grandisson subscribed £10 to what
seems to have been a special fund {pro constructions
porticorum). Great efforts were being made at this
time for the completion of some work, as in 1349
eight hundred indulgences were issued for bene¬
factors to the fabric. From these indications it
seems plain that the image-wall was executed as
a separate work almost immediately after the
completion of the nave (about 1345) under
Grandisson. “Tablature” is used elsewhere in
the Rolls for the imagery behind the high altar.

If now we turn to the frontispiece itself we may
be surprised that such work can have been
ascribed to the same time and influence as pro¬
duced the east window, which is known certainly
to be of Brantingham’s time, and is typically
“ Perpendicular ” in style. The niche-work may
be just the last word of the old era, but it is
certainly of fine mid-century character. The
central statues of the lower tier, as well as all the
supporting angels, must also be of Grandisson’s
time. These romantic, cross-legged kings, habited

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

i i 6

in diapered stuffs and an early type of plate-armour,
can hardly have been wrought many years after the
terrible scourge of the Black Death which changed
so profoundly the spirit of mediaeval art. The upper
row of sculptures, and those at the ends below,
are doubtless later. It is on one of the pedestals
beneath the two central upper figures that the
Coat-of-Arms of Richard II. appears, and this
seems to be the only reason that has led to the
supposition that the whole of this romantic work
was of that king’s time. The image-wall of
Exeter is still practically intact, except for a
specimen of what “ restoration ” may be expected
to achieve, and. thus furnishes by far the best
point of departure for the study of the storied
west fronts of our great churches.

I he sculptures have been examined more than
once with a view to reading the general meaning
of the scheme and identifying the individual
figures. I shall follow each account in sequence
as far as it appears to be valid. Carter, a century
ago, made a survey of the cathedral, the results
of which were published in the Vetusta Monumenta
(1797). He also etched most of the sculptures of
the kings for his Specimens of Painting and Sculpture.
For this purpose he made sketches of all the
figures and these are especially valuable for com¬
parison with the statues in their present state.

In the first-named publication, the two central
niches above the great door are said to have
formerly held two seated figures — -that on the left
being, when he wrote, destroyed. The figure
to the right is described as a Royal Figure, his
foot on a globe which was divided into three
parts. The statues on each side of these, at the
same level, are ten of the Apostles (twelve, count¬
ing the returns of the two buttresses) with their
attributes. On the face of the two buttresses,
and at the same level are the Four Evangelists
with their symbols. To the right, at the angle,
is St. Michael triumphing over Satan. Over the
smaller north door in the west front are three
small figures, the fourth being lost. These are
Justice with scales, Fortitude with lance and
shield, Discipline (or Prudence) with a heart (?)
in her hands, and religious dress. All are crowned
and are trampling down Vices. On the jambs of
the central door are four small figures in relief
crowned and seated.

Britton, in his “Cathedral Antiquities,” gave
a list which pretended to identify all the figures
with a haphazard jumble of historical and Biblical
persons; early kings of Wessex, Godfrey de
Bouillon, and Guy de Lusignan, appear here in
no recognisable order and for no conceivable
reason. Although this scheme was abolished by
the criticism of Cockerell fifty years ago, it still
appears in the most recent and popular guide¬

book, along with regrets expressed, in regard to
the sculpture, “ that there is so much of it ! ”

Cockerell, in his remarkable book* on mediaeval
sculpture, 1851, gives the result of prolonged
study of the iconographical schemes of our
cathedrals. He properly identifies the remaining
one of the two central figures with Christ, and
points out that He was in the act of crowning the
Virgin. Her figure had been destroyed and His
was made to do duty for one of the English kings
by the addition of a sceptre. The twelve
Apostles are severally identified by Cockerell —

I. St. Philip holding loaves of bread ; 2. St. Bar¬
tholomew holding his own skin ; 3. St. Matthew
with a book ; 4. St. Thomas (?) ; 5. St. Andrew ;
6 and 7. SS. Peter and Paul on either side of the
Coronation of the Virgin; 8. St. John with cup;
9. St. James with palmer’s hat ; 10. St. Simeon ;

II. St. James the Less with fuller’s club ; 12. St.
|ude(?) broken. He explains the remarkable
reliefs of angels in the spandrels of the central
door as being “ in ecstatic attitudes as if dazzled,”
and alludes to Psalm xxiv., “ Lift up your heads,
O ye gates .... and the King of Glory shall
come in.” As some substantiation of this, he
points to the choir of rejoicing angels along the
battlements. The four Evangelists in the upper
tier of the two buttresses have their usual symbols
at their feet. St. Matthew and St. John with
an angel and an eagle, St. Luke and St. Mark
with a calf and a lion. The remaining sixteen
figures of the upper row (excepting that at the
south angle), Cockerell assigns to the twelve
minor and four greater Prophets.

In the lower row two pairs of figures in the
buttresses, below the Evangelists, are, Cockerell
suggests, four Doctors of the Church — -St. Jerome
and St. Gregory, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine.
The rest of the lower row he explains as being
English Kings, from Alfred to Henry VI.

The identification of the two central figures
above the great door as having been Christ and
the Virgin is certain. The head and gesture of
the remaining figure are entirely characteristic,
and the globe on which His foot rests is the
world subdivided into its three then known con¬
tinents and the ocean (Fig. 6). A lovely version of
the Coronation of the Virgin occupies a similar
position at Wells, and no other could so properly
gather up the meaning of the Exeter scheme.
Distributed over the front are four Coats-of-Arms.

* This book shows Cockerell, the exquisite classicist, to have
had quick insight into the meaning of mediaeval art, and a true
enthusiasm for it ; a man full in intellect and in heart. He
speaks of the “ intensity of character and the delicacy of execu¬
tion.” The knight, with his visor up, “casting a shadow over
his face, and reminding us of Michael Angelo, is the very model
of deliberate valour.”

Hozv Exeter Cathedral was Built.

1 17

VO I

XIII.— I

FIG. 5.— THE IMAGE WALL AND CENTRAL DOOR.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

i 1 8

Above, on the two great
buttresses, are the pseudo¬
coats of Athelstan the
benefactor to Exeter, and
the Confessor, w h o
founded the cathedral.*
Beneath the Coronation
of the Virgin are two
other coats — that on the
left is England impaling
the Confessor — the well-
known armsof Richard II.,
that on the right shows
the pseudo arms of Leo-
fric the first Bishop of
Exeter, impaling the ordi¬
nary Arms of the See.
The two doubtless stood for the reigning king
when the upper statues were wrought, and the
See. As, however, Richard II's. arms come
under the niche where the Virgin was enthroned,
it is now filled with a mean and silly figure of a
king, ! and this and the figure of Christ, we are
told in the guide-books, represent Richard II.
and Athelstan. It is also certain that the Apos¬
tles stand much in the order Cockerell gives.
St. Philip comes first as the first called. St. Peter
and St. Paul usually stand on the right and
left of the central group, and here, where they
share in the dedication of the church, it was
especially appropriate. St. Paul is a bald,
bearded man with a sword ; St. John, much
younger, carries the chalice ; St. James is a
splendid figure with staff and wallet and scallop
shell in his palmer’s hat.

The subject of the south angle Cockerell calls
St. George, rather than St. Michael, as was first
proposed. Here he appears to be wrong, as in
Carter’s sketch the figure is feathered as an arch¬
angel. That the rest of the figures in the upper
row are prophets is also certain : they carry
scrolls on which they seem to write or to read,
and their headdress is the characteristic hat given
in the MSS. to Jewish persons of authority. On
the scrolls were probably wiitten extracts from
their prophecies. In the east window three pro¬
phets bear scrolls on which are inscribed Gen.

* Two large isolated figures stand above these arms and are
usually named Athelstan and the Confessor. According to
Oliver these were renewed about 1820. They are too remote to
say anything about.

f Oliver says this figure was done about 1818. The whole
top row of niche-heads and battlements above are “restored’'
work of doubtful character. The new figure in the lower row
called “William the Conqueror " (!) preserves the old attitude as
described by Cockerell ; but what a poor, scowling creature it is
beside the old figures — and still we go on putting our trust
in “ restoration,” not even knowing what it is we restore, and
always full of belief for next time.

xvii. 19, Deut. xviii. 1-5, and Isa. has Egrcdietur
virga de radice Jesse. The lower figures, with the
exception of those on the buttresses as we have
seen, have hitherto been called English kings.
The short list which Cockerell gives is much more
reasonable than that in Britton, and there seemed
little to be said against the supposition because
this scheme appeared to be parallel with the well-
known galleries of the kings on French Cathe¬
drals. In France, however, the kings have not
such important positions as at Exeter and Lich¬
field. And by this reading, moreover, Richard II.
in whose reign Cockerell supposes the statues to
have been carved, and Edward III., his great
predecessor, were represented only by two busts
over the south door.

Only a few years after Cockerell wrote, V. le
Due pointed out that the statues of kings on the
cathedrals dedicated to the Virgin were the kings
of Judah ( Dictionnaire , s. v. Cathedrale), and this
is now generally accepted. M. Emile Male, in
IS Art Religieux, 1902, points out that the Gallery
of Kings “ is another form of the tree of Jesse.’’
The figures are crowned because they were all of
the royal line, if not all kings. At Paris there
were twenty-eight, exactly the number in the
genealogy as given by St. Matthew. But the
number is not fixed ; at Chartres there are eigh¬
teen, at Amiens twenty-two. The presumption
now becomes that the English scheme follows the
French model ; and, in support of this view, so
many points can be urged as to amount to proof.
Examination of the images themselves shows (and
this has never been pointed out) that the second
in order was a king playing upon a harp, who
cannot be any other than David (Fig. 7). Another
figure held a flower, which must be a bud of the
Tree of Jesse: one or more had crosses on their
breasts. It is common, in the Trees, to find the
prophets associated with the royal ancestors. In
the Dorchester window
we have Jesse, David
playing his harp, to¬
gether with three or
four others of the royal
line, and twelve pro¬
phets. On the beautiful
rose-coloured cope at
South Kensington
(c. 1300) there are Jesse,

David and his harp,

Solomon, Rehoboam,
and Abijah, together
with twelve prophets,
and the Virgin. The
large figures of the _

Christ Church reredos fig. 7.— david.

FIG. 6. — STATUE OVER
CENTRAL DOOR.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

are unfortunately for the most part destroyed, but
the two which remain besides Jesse and the central
Nativity, are David and another king sitting cross-
legged so exactly like the kings of Exeter that we
can hardly doubt that they were the work of the
same hand,*' and the supposition that the kings
are English does not seem to go very far back at
Exeter or Wells or Lichfield. From his account
Cockerell seems to have been the first to apply
the theory to Wells, and this in opposition to the
old interpretation of the Clergy (which he cites)
as reported by William of Worcester in 1450. Ac¬
cording to this traditional account the North tower
was devoted to stories of the “ Old Law,” and
the West face and South tower to the “ New.”t
In 1634 several cathedrals were visited by some
antiquaries who have left an account of what they
saw, which has been printed in the Gentleman's
Magazine. They tell us that at Lichfield there
were 100 fair statues curiously graven and
carved in freestone, of kings, patriarchs, pro¬
phets, fathers and apostles, that grace it much,
and angels and a majesty at top. This very
valuable account is not by itself conclusive, but
in a “ History of the City and Cathedral ”
issued in 1805 (John Jackson, jun.), we are told
that a statue of Charles II. took the place of
Christ, and “ on both sides [on] the steeples were
all the old Patriarchs. The next two rows were
filled with figures of prophets or prophetesses and
judges. Underneath sit a range of the kings of
Israel and Judah in various postures, King David
playing upon his harp, and in the centre a statue
with a mitre supposed to be St. Chad [probably a
virgin originally] .... the walls between
the large and small doors were filled with figures
of the twelve Apostles.” Over the north door
was also a Jesse “or descent of kings,” twenty-
eight generations, “also the descent of Priests.”

In these descriptions of Lichfield we have out¬
lined a scheme sufficiently large even to explain
the image front of Wells, and it can hardly be
doubted that at the other end of the scale the
west door of Rochester should be explained on
the same analogy. Here the King standing in
one jamb is probably David and the Queen (bear¬
ing a scroll) Bathsheba, the lion in the capital
over the king is the symbol of the tribe of Judah.

At Exeter there are twenty-nine figures in the
lower tier, but the four on the buttresses seem to
be of another type. The penultimate figure in

* Carter says that the second king is Solomon and that the
smaller statues compr se the Apostles, Moses, &c. It is evi¬
dently almost a counterpart' of the Exeter Scheme. See also
bosses, South Walk of Cloister at Worcester, as described by
Cockerell.

f This division agrees with what is found in French churches
(see Male).

I IQ

Carter’s sketch looks very much like a woman’s;
it was headless, but it is tempting to suggest that
it represented the Virgin ; of this, however, 1 do
not feel at all certain without verification. But I
have no doubt at all that the first three are Jesse,
David, and Rehoboam, and that the genealogical
line was continued to either the Virgin or Joseph
or both. The figures on the buttresses which
Cockerell assigned to the four Doctors of the
Western Church, were, with the exception of the
third, headless at the time that Carter made his
notes; they all, however, had ecclesiastical vest¬
ments and bore scrolls ; the third one having also
a mitre. The scrolls mark them as teachers, and
it is possible that Cockerell was right ; * the four
Doctors are often found together in MSS. Four
of the great figures of the south porch at Chartres
represent them, and they appear to be sculptured
over the chapter-house door at Rochester.

A French miniature (MS. Hark, 1585) shows us
to the right and left of the Throne of Heaven
St. Peter and St, Paul. Beyond St. Peter are
St. Jerome and St. Gregory ; beyond St. Paul
are St. Augustine and St. Ambrose. In the
vault of Heaven is a door guarded by Faith,
Hope, and Charity. The last point may well
introduce a suggestion as to the four little
crowned figures on the jambs of the great door.
It seems in any case unlikely that only the
four subsidiary virtues should have places to the
exclusion of the theological virtues. Now, if
these small figures at the central door represent
Faith, Hope, Charity, and Humility, we can
better understand the position of the others over
the north door. An eighth virtue is very fre¬
quently found together with the better known
seven, when conditions of design call for it. On
the north porch of Chartres are sculptured Pru¬
dence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith,
Hope, Charity, and Humility,! and the same
selection is made on Andrea Pisano’s door of the
Baptistry at Florence. M. Male remarks that
Humility was happily chosen since the mediaeval
theologians considered Pride (which she tramples
beneath her feet) to be the root of all vices.

One other small point — between the two busts
over the south door is a carving which, accord¬
ing to Cockerell, is a double-necked swan, the
badge, he says, of the Plantagenets. It is, how¬
ever, far more probably the well-known badge of
Bohun, a splendid example of which appears on
the tomb of the Bohun wife of Edward Courteney,
now in the south transept, but which formerly
stood in the south aisle to which this doorway

* An alternative solution would be that they represented the
priestly line of descent, but that three of the figures had their
heads dest 'oyed shows that they were probably the Fathers.

f Humility is found at Salisbury.

I 20

Current A rckitecture.

leads. Opposite their tomb in the south aisle
were, Isaak says, their arms in the glazing : she
married Courteney about 1325, and he, it is said,
gave the large sum of 200 marks to the fabric fund.
Besides the sculptures of the front proper, there are
within this south porch two magnificent groups
representing the Annunciation and Nativity, and
beneath the former a Secondary Annunciation — the
angel appearing to Joseph. The key-stone of the
vault of the great porch is a Crucifixion. On the
vault of Grandisson’s Chapel is Christ in Majesty.
The whole is evidently a harmonious scheme.
We are not likely to have statues of Rufus,
Henry II., fohn, and Edward II., surrounded by
rejoicing angels in this sculptured Bible of Exeter,

which was all illuminated in bright colour and
gold.*

Note.- Here I cannot venture on more than a suggestion in
regard to Wells, but I have no doubt that its scheme fell in with
the general system, and that no secular history was included.
On the left the images are mostly Kings ; on the right Ecclesias¬
tics. There are exceptions, but the Arabic numerals on the
statues probably show that they have been moved at some time.
The Kings are probably the ancestors of Christ, and the priests
may be the priest'y line ; the rest are saints, prophets, apostles.

W. R. Lethaby.

* Oliver. At Lichfield also this was the case : the account
before cited goes on, " These statues were formerly all richly
gilt and painted.” These west fronts — the early door of Roches¬
ter, the images of Exeter, and the latest effort of Gothic symbol¬
ism at Bath--are sculptured Heavens where the saints stand
tier on tier beneath the throne of Christ.

“ SANDHOUSE,” VVITLEY, SURREY. THE STAIRCASE.
E. \V. TROUP, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

i 2 i

Photo: G. E. Martin.

“SANDHOUSE,” WITLEY, SURREY. THE DINING ROOM.

F. W. TROUP, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture.

Sandhouse, Witley, Surrey, for
Joseph King, Esq. — The position this house
occupies, close to the roadway, was dictated by
the subsoil. Most of the ground is clay, but at
this point the sand from which the adjoining
hamlet of Sandhills takes its name, finishes in a
spur on which the house has been built. The
entrance court is a foot or two below the level of
the road, and the ground falls away more rapidly
beyond the house southward, giving a sunny
aspect for the garden, and the opportunity for
terraces, walls, and garden steps, as the ground
dips towards the orchards and green glades be¬
yond. The bricks used for the house come from
a kiln close by. As they are wood-burnt, most of
the headers are vitreous flare-ends of a soft grey
colour, and these have been worked into a diaper
over the whole of the buildings. The contrast of
the two colours, grey and red, becomes exag¬

gerated in the photographs. The diaper in
reality is almost identical in colour with the lead,
of which a good deal occurs in pipes, heads, and
elsewhere about the buildings. All the window
frames, doors, etc., are of oak. Weatherboarding
is also of oak, except the stables and workshops,
where elm has been used. There is some stone¬
work in gate piers, terrace walls, and so forth,
which is of the local Bargate stone, the copings
and dressed stone is Portland, and a good deal of
paving and steps about the garden have been
done with old London flagstones. Internally the
woodwork of the principal rooms is English oak.
In the dining-room ceiling (shown in one of the
photographs) all the beams and joists are left
rough from the saw, and whitewashed. With
regard to the plan, it was the particular wish of
the owner that the kitchen, scullery, etc., should
have a south aspect, and overlook the grounds.

I 2 2

C u rren t A rch itectu re.

The somewhat unusual south larder has double
windows and triple walls, and is supplemented by
good cellars and a detached dairy with covered
approach. The latter has also the triple wall
and a thatched roof. A small enclosed garden
has been formed at this end of the house for the

use of the servants, the kitchen garden being to
the east of the house, where a good aspect and
sheltered situation was available. Mr. Herbert
Hutchinson, of Ilaslemere, was the builder, and
Mr. F. W. Troup the architect.

T/ i d urgin' fluff /V'< ,trn"

SANDHOUSE,” WIT LEY, SURREY. PLANS. F. W. TROUP, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

123

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jiHjfjr

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SANDHOUSE,” WITLEY, SURREY. ENTRANCE FRONT (NORTH).
. W. TROUP, ARCHITECT.

124

Current Architecture

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“SANDHOUSE,” WITLEY, SURREY. GARDEN FRONT FROM
THE PERGOLA. F. W. TROUP, ARCHITECT.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVIEW, APRIL,
I903, VOLUME XIII.
NO. 77-

FRONTISPIECE TO PALLADIO’S ARCHITECTURE.

THIS IS FROM LORD BURLINGTON’S COPY, NOW IN THE AUTHOR’S POSSESSION.

Andrea Palladio.*

Andrea Palladio was born at Vicenza in
the year 1518 — there is some uncertainty as to
the date — and was the son of Pietro, stone mason,
of that city. He is said to have begun his career
as a sculptor — the probable meaning of which is
that he helped his father in building — but to have
given up sculpture for the study of architecture.
Mr. Fletcher, repeating a story given by Temanza
and Milizia, says “ his master at this time, it is
believed, was Giovanni Fontana.” The famous
Giovanni Fontana known to Vasari was some
twenty-two years younger than Palladio, so that
we should like to hear more of this other Giovanni
Fontana, “ architect of the Grand Palace of
Udine.” Temanza rested his assertion first on a
passage at the end of Vasari’s “ Life of Jacopo
Sansovino,” which mentions “ un Giovanni intag-
liatore e architetto ” as belonging to Vicenza;
and secondly, on a supposed record that the design
for the Basilica of Vicenza was sent in under the
joint names of Maestro Giovanni and A. Palladio,
and he assumed that this Giovanni must have been
Palladio’s master; but the passage in Vasari was
added by certain of his editors ; moreover, this
unknown Giovanni is there described as a sculptor
of ornament rather than an architect, and there
seems to be no evidence for the story worth the
name. An entry of a payment to “ Messer Andrea,
architect,” in 1540, discovered by Bertotti
Scamozzi, probably refers to Palladio, and, if so,
shows that he was already recognised as an archi¬
tect, but, so far, his early training is a matter of
conjecture, and he probably learnt his business
with his father, with such education as he picked
up from his patron and employer, Gian Giorgio
Trissino. In 1541 Palladio accompanied Trissino
to Rome to study the remains of Classical archi¬
tecture, and subsequently he visited Ancona,
Rimini, Naples, Capua, and Nimes. He refers to
the famous double staircase at Chambord, but there
is no evidence to show that he ever went there.
In 1547 he was at Tivoli, and in 1551 he was at
Rome for the third time, in the company of Vene¬
tian gentlemen. It is during these years, from
1540 to 1551, that he appears to have collected the
materials for his work “ Le Antichita di Roma,”
published at Rome in 1557 and at Venice in 1565.

Meanwhile, he had begun practice as an archi¬
tect. His earliest work is said to have been
certain alterations to the Palazzo Trissino at
Criccoli for Trissino in 1536, but even taking
lull account of the precocity of artists of the
Renaissance, it is hardly likely that he was em-

* "Andrea Palladio : his Life and Works.” By Banister F.
Fletcher. G. Bell and Sons. 1902.

ployed here as architect. The probable explana¬
tion is that he acted as foreman or superintendent
for Trissino, possibly with his father Pietro as
contractor. This is only a theory, but Imperiale
definitely states that Palladio was “ famulus ” to
Trissino, and that it was Trissino who first intro¬
duced him to the study of architecture. Palladio’s
first important work was the addition of the two-
storied arcaded Loggia to the Salla della Ragione
at Vicenza in 1545 to 1549. In 1549 he is said to
have been summoned to Rome by Paul III. to
advise on the completion of St. Peter’s ; but as the
Pope died before his arrival, nothing came of the
visit. The whole story, however, seems to be
doubtful. In 1556 he designed the church of St.
Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, and the Church of
II Redentoreat Venice was begun from his designs
in 1576. Among his other important buildings
are the series of palaces at Vicenza, such as the
Palazzi Chiericate, Thiene, Valmarana, Bar-
barano, and Porto, the Casa del Diavolo, and the
Palazzo del Consiglio, the Olympic Theatre at
Vicenza, the Convent of La Carita at Venice, and
various country houses, of which the most im¬
portant executed design was a villa for Paolo
Almerigo, a favourite model of eighteenth century
architects. There is a good deal of confusion
about the name of this building. The villa in
question (which is shown on page 18, Book II., of
the 1570 edition of Palladio and on plates 14 and
15 Book II., of Leoni’s edition) was built for
the Referendary Paolo Almerigo (not Armerico)

“ within less than a quarter of a mile ” of Vicenza.
Mr. Fletcher calls it “ the Villa Capra.” Now
Palladio did build a house for Signor Giulio Capra
“ in un bellissimo sito sopra la strada principale
della Citta ” (Vicenza), which is shown in page 20,
Book II., Palladio, 1570 — immediately following
the plate of Almerigo’s house. Milizia first called
Almerigo’s house the Villa Capra, and Mr.
Fletcher appears to have followed him.f Palladio’s
literary work is of course of first-rate importance
in the history of architecture. In addition to the
“ Antichita ” and the Commentaries of Caesar
he helped Daniel Barbara (not Barbero) in his
edition of “ Vitruvius” (1556), and in 1570 he pub¬
lished the final results of his studies in those
famous four books which have done more to influ¬
ence architecture than any book ever written on
the subject, except the treatise of Vitruvius. His
latest design was made for the Theatre of the
Olympic Academy at Vicenza. This was begun

f The initial confusion appears to have arisen from the fact
that in the eighteenth century the Villa Almerigo belonged to a
Marquis Capra.

VOL. XIII. — K 2

128

Andrea Palladio.

in 1580, but Palladio did not live to see the com¬
pletion of this building, for he died the same year,
and was buried in S. Corona, at Vicenza. In
1845 his remains were removed to the Communal
Cemetery, on which occasion, says Mr. Fletcher,
“ a loud volley of cannon proved an impressive
finale to the solemnity of the occasion.”

In spite of this and similar literary embellish¬
ments, Mr. Fletcher’s account is hardly adequate
to his subject. The scanty collection of facts
which, with one or two additions, I have sum¬
marised above, are pretty well all that Mr. Fletcher
has to offer, supplemented by a catalogue raisonne
of Palladio's buildings and designs ; but the facts
are taken from Paolo Gualdo’s life, published at
Padua in 1749, and the account of his buildings is
drawn from Palladio’s own description as tran¬
slated in Leoni’s edition of Palladio’s four books
on architecture, together with certain notes and
dimensions from “ Les Batiments et les desseins
de Andre Palladio,” Vicenza, by Ottavio Bertotti
Scamozzi, first published in 1776 in Italian,
and in French in 1796. Mr. Fletcher calls the
latter author indifferently Bertotti and Scamozzi,
much to the mystification of his reader. Few
dates are given to the buildings, and as they are
not arranged chronologically in Mr. Fletcher’s
book the student has no opportunity of tracing the
development of Palladio’s style. The illustrations
consist of photographs and reproductions of en¬
gravings from the works of O. B. Scamozzi and
Leoni. Considering that many of the latter’s
engravings are well-known to be inaccurate, it is
somewhat singular that Mr. Fletcher should have
reproduced them in preference to Palladio’s original
woodcuts. There is little trace of any research on
the spot, or, indeed, of any personal appreciation
of the precise value of Palladio’s work. In view
of such alarming developments as are now taking
place under the comprehensive title of “ L’Art
Nouveau,” one the more regrets the inadequacy of
this biography. An authoritative critical study of
Palladio, and his time would be of great value in
the present state of architectural practice.

Mr. Fletcher’s account is deficient in historical
background and inaccurate in facts. It is no
great help to the student of Palladio to be told
(p. 4) that on the 23rd of May, 1498, Savonarola
“ was, alas ! burnt as a heretic at the stake,” or
that “ antiquity seems to have formed the prin¬
cipal study in every branch of learning at the
time.” What antiquity ? The wisdom of the
Egyptians or of the Greeks, of the Romans, or of
whom ? — or to be told (p. 5) that Michelozzi,
Cronaca, San Gallo, and Mangelli, are all “ Cinque
cento Florentines in favour of the Renaissance.”
There were seven designers of the name of San
Gallo, was it Giuliano or Antonio, Aristotile or

Giovanni ? and one would like to hear more of
the architect “ Mangelli.” Vasari mentions a
stonecutter and architect Mangone who erected
many palaces and buildings at Rome “with con¬
siderable ability.” Why, again, should a com¬
paratively unimportant designer, such as Baccio
Pintelli (not Pentelli) be mentioned in the com¬
pany of Brunelleschi, Bramante, and Peruzzi ?
There is a want of proportion in such grouping as
this. On p. 6, Mr. Fletcher says : “ Later San¬
sovino built the library of St. Mark’s, Venice,
and also the magnificent palace of the Procuratie,
which Palladio specially eulogises, etc.” Pal¬
ladio’s words are : “ Procuratia nova, la quale e il
piu ricco e ornato edificio che forse sia stato fatto
da gli antichi in qua.” It is known that Scamozzi
built what is known as the “ Procuratie nuove ”
after Palladio's death, and he refers to it as his
work in his book, pt. 1, p. 125, 1. 50. There can
be no doubt that Palladio is here referring to the
library which, according to Vasari, Sansovino
built for the Procurators of St. Mark's. On p. 8,
we are informed that “ in these days ” (i.e., when
Palladio was at Rome, 1540-1550) “ Rome was
gay with music and laughter, bright with an in¬
fluence which was slowly but surely effacing the
rust of barbarity which had so long remained on
the surface of the ages, and loosening the fetters
which had long bound them in indolence.”

“ Purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter

Assuitur pannus ....

Sed nunc non erat his locus.”

The date in question is, say 1550. It appears then
that Alberti, Fra Giocondo, Brunelleschi, Bra¬
mante, Raphael, Michelozzo, Peruzzi, Sanmichele,
Sangallo, Sansovino, and the great architects that
preceded Palladio, had been labouring under “the
rust of barbarity ” and “ the fetters of indolence,”
and that it was reserved for Palladio to place the
arts on a proper footing. This is a new reading
of history with a vengeance, but the merely casual
student will find a good deal in this work to make
him rub his eyes. On the same page, Mr.
Fletcher states that of the remains of ancient
Rome existing at the time of Palladio’s visit
“the four gates still stood, those of the Rotunda,
St. Adriano, St. Cosino and St. Agnes”. Imperial
Rome possessed, according to the late Professor
Middleton, some forty-five gates, but I do not find
in his list any of Mr. Fletcher’s four gates, though
one learns from Palladio himself that the Porta
Viminalis was known as the Porta St. Agnese,
probably on account of its proximity to the seventh
century church of Sant’ Agnese fuori i muri.
Palladio himself gives the names of fifteen gates
in “ L’Antichita di Roma,” which Mr. Fletcher does
not appear to have consulted. On the other hand
there was “ the Rotunda,” or the Pantheon, in

Andrea Palladio .

i 29

)

existence ; and also the Church of SS. Cosimo
and Damian. Does Mr. Fletcher refer to these
buildings ?

Mr. Fletcher’s descriptions of buildings are not
always easy to follow, as on p. 87, the portico of
the church at Maser is described as “ hexagonal.”
As, however, it appears from the illustrations to
be a regular composition of four columns and two
angle piers, carrying a tr i -angular pediment, per¬
haps “ hexastyle ” would be a more suitable
term. On p. 88 the plan of a church measuring
44.6 wide by yy.o long is described as “ nearly
square.” So again on p. 93 we are told that Inigo
Jones used Palladio’s design for the convent of
La Carita at Venice, in Houghton Hall, Bedford¬
shire, a building now in ruins, the point of resem¬
blance being a certain recessed portico at Hough¬
ton “ about twenty-two feet by twelve with four

Ionic Corinthian and compo¬
site orders is taken as the
half diameter.” Palladio
states twice over that it is
only to the Doric order that
the half diameter module ap¬
plies. Mr. Fletcher has been
at some pains to explain the
Vicenza foot, “ an English
foot,” he says, “is to the
Vicenza foot as i.if is to
1 foot, so that by adding
1 -7th to a measurement in
Vicentine feet, we obtain the
equivalent in English feet.”
Leoni (Palladio, Book II.,
Chap. 2, p. 60, ed. 1721) says
that “the English foot makes
only io4- inches of the Vi con¬
iine foot.” About this state¬
ment there can be no mis¬
understanding, and it seems
to me preferable to the elabo¬
rate system of adding vtl > .
Mr. Fletcher’s English is
somewhat peculiar. In his
“ Forewords ” he uses “ Peda¬
gogy ” as synonymous with
pedantry, and it is not appa¬
rent why Raphael should be
accused of making plans “ to
exploit the ancient works of
Rome ” when all that he con¬
templated was their illus¬
tration and record. Again,
“Agora” and “Palaestra”
are not nominatives plural,
as Mr. Fletcher appears to
suggest. On p. 120 we
come across another of Mr.

three-quarter Doric columns.” On looking up the
plan of La Carita in Palladio, I find that Palladio
designed it as a large cloister court, 86 by 70,
with three orders, entered by an atrium or vesti¬
bule 60 feet long by 45J wide, open to the sky in
the centre with a colonnade of four columns on
either side of the composite order 40 feet high.
The figures are taken from Mr. Fletcher’s account.
From this it would appear that there was not the
very slightest resemblance between the design of
La Carita and the designs of Houghton or of the
Queen’s house at Greenwich, to which Mr,
Fletcher also refers. On p. g8 we are correctly
told that Palladio’s module is the diameter of the
column taken at the base, except in the case of
the Doric order in which the module is half the
diameter ; but nine lines lower down we are told
“ the module in this ” (the Doric order) “ and the

LA CARITA, VENICE. FROM PALLADIO, ED. 1570.

DE I DISEGNI chcfeguono,i!primoedipartediquefto Atrio in forma
nuggiore, & itfccondo di pane dell'Inclauftro.

DELL'ATRIO

130

Andrea Palladio.

Fletcher's startling historical statements, “ as to
France, says Boffrand, Milizia in l’Hopital des
enfants trouves, and Goudouin in l’Ecole de
Medicine, were followers of Palladio.” Bnt
Boffrand was the architect of the Hopital des
Enfants trouves, and as for Milizia he was not an
architect at all, but a most industrious if inac¬
curate writer who published his “ Lives ” of the
more celebrated architects at Rome in 1768.*
Mr. Fletcher’s concluding chapter on the influence
of Palladio and his school is a perfect farrago of
uncritical statements. He repeats the foolish
story that Inigo Jones designed the garden front
of St. John's, Oxford, for which there is no
authority either on its own showing or in docu¬
mentary evidence, and that he designed the
Palladian Bridge at Wilton, which is known to
have been designed for Lord Pembroke by Morris
a hundred years later. There is no evidence for
the statement that Inigo Jones was in “ a lucra¬
tive practice ” before 1612. It is very doubtful
whether he had designed any architectural work
at all before that year. After an excursus on
Lord Burlington, Mr. Fletcher assures us (p. 126)
that “at the universities Wren carried out many
works bearing the impress of his Palladian train¬
ing ; ” and, as an instance, couples together the
Sheldonian theatre at Oxford, and the library of
Trinity, Cambridge, two quite dissimilar build¬
ings, both in date and treatment. It is well known
that Wren never travelled in Italy, and that the
only foreign influence which seriously affected his
work was that of the architects of Louis Quatorze,
and they took Vignola for their model in prefer¬
ence to Palladio. The mistake is a serious one,
for it shows a total misconception of the cha¬
racter of Wren’s work and of that of the architects
who succeeded him. Early in the eighteenth
century a dead set was made against Wren by the
younger generation, and the whole point of their
disparagement of Wren was that in fact he was a
free lance who disregarded the niceties of Palladian
architecture. Lord Burlington was an amateur
and a prig, but the architects ought to have known
better than to join in a conspiracy of silence
against one of the greatest architects the world
has ever seen. Mr. Fletcher, however, bravely
jumbles together Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh, Lord
Burlington, Robert Adam, and Sir William
Chambers ; indeed one wonders why he should
have stopped short at this point and not swept
into his collection Decimus Burton, Sir Charles
Barry, Greek Thompson and Professor Cockerell.

* Milizia’s “ Lives ” appears in Mr. Fletcher’s Bibliographical
List, but I see no mention in it of the late Mr. William Ander¬
son’s “ General View of the Renaissance in Italy.” Mr. Anderson
was one of the very few recent writers on architecture who
approached his subject from the standpoint of an architect,
and his untimely death is a real loss to students.

If Mr. Fletcher addresses himself again to the
study of Palladio, his readers would be grateful
for an extension of his area of research, and he
may perhaps recall a certain caustic remark in
Leoni’s preface : “ ’Tis pity that the authors who
have made mention of him are silent in the par¬
ticulars of his life. They have taken great pains
in giving us a long list of the fine buildings where¬
with he adorned his country, but to little purpose,
since we have them drawn and explained by himself
in the second and third books of his architecture.”
Had Mr. Fletcher even consulted Vasari, he might
have placed Palladio in some sort of relation to
his contemporaries. He would have told us
that he designed a theatre in wood and open to
the sky, in the manner of the Colosseum, for the
“ Signori della Compagnia della Calza ” at Venice,
and that he employed Federigo Zucchero to paint
the scenery for his theatre in twelve large pictures,
representing incidents in the life of Hyrcanus
king of Jerusalem, the hero of the tragedy to be
performed in this theatre. Mr. Fletcher might
also have gleaned the more important fact that
Palladio was a member of the Academy of Flo¬
rence — a body which included in its ranks Titian,
Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, Bronzino, and many
others, including the excellent Vasari himself. In
the Bologna edition of Vasari (1647, the edition
on which Temanza founded his wild theory about
Giovanni “ Fontana ”) two pages and a half are
devoted to an extravagant panegyric of Palladio
and a complete list of his works. The writer
states that Palladio had made of Vicenza the
most honourable and beautiful of cities, and that
in regard to his design in general “ sarebbe stata
lunghissima storia voler raccontare molto partico-
lari di belle e strane inventioni e capricci.” Ca¬
price in connection with Palladio is hardly what
one would expect, and the whole passage bears
evident marks of being a later interpolation. It
seems to me an ex post facto and worthless testi¬
monial, but Mr. Fletcher may be glad of a
passage to support his enthusiasm for “ our
master.” What the student wants to know is
Palladio’s place among architects, how he came
to occupy the position in history that he does,
what were the sources from which he drew his
inspiration, and the genesis of his individual
methods of thought and design. Architects do
not spring into existence fully armed, as Pallas
Athene sprang from the brow of Zeus. One
wants to know and understand their antecedents,
the labours of their predecessors which became
their heritage, the intellectual atmosphere of the
time which made them possible at all ; and this
is, in fact, the function of historical criticism.
Palladio, for instance, could hardly have conceived
of his books on architecture and his antiquities of

Andrea Palladio

i 3 i

Andrea Palladio.

Rome if Alberti had not written his ten books,
“ De Re JEdificatoria,” more than a hundred
years before, and if that extraordinary scholar
and architect, Fra Giocondo, had not led the
way with his “ Corpus Inscriptionum,” and if
Daniele Barbaro had not produced his immensely
learned commentaries on Vitruvius in his own
lifetime ; and if, in short, all the great architects
of the hundred years before him had not given
the profoundest study possible at the time to the
remains of classical architecture then existing in
Rome. Flavio Biondo had written his “ Roma
Instaurata ” as early as 1430-40, and his MS. was
printed at Rome in 1480. Poggio’s MS., “ De
Fortunae Varietate,” written about the same time
as Biondo’s work, was printed at Basle in 1538.
Moreover, the works of Albertini, Pomponius
Leto, Fulvio, Calvus, Lafreri, Marliani, Fauno,
Labacco, and Ligorio, were all earlier than
Palladio's book ; and besides these there is
Serlio’s work to be considered. Serlio published
the first of his books on architecture in 1532, and
completed the series in 1540. Now Serlio was in
the field long before Palladio, for the first book
which he published was actually the fourth in the
complete set, and in this book he gave a full
account of the five orders and their various orna¬
ments, while in the book next published (third in
the complete set) he treated “of all kinds of
excellent antiquities of buildings, of Houses,
Temples, Amphitheatres, Palaces, Thermes, Obe¬
lisks, Bridges, Arches triumphant, etc.’’, with the
motto, “ Romas quanta fuit ipsa ruina docet.”
Among the buildings delineated are the Pantheon,
the Temple of Bacchus, the Temple of Peace, the
Temple of Piety, the Temple of Vesta, four un¬
named Temples (one of Minerva Medica), various
designs of St. Peter’s, S. Pietro in Montorio, the
theatre of Marcellus, the theatre at Pisa, a theatre
near Viterbo, Trajan’s Column, the Colosseum,
the amphitheatres at Verona and Pisa, a palace
on Monte Cavallo at Rome, the harbour of Ostia,
the Thermae of Titus and of Diocletian, one of
the Pyramids, the “ Bankers’ building ”, S. Georgio
in Velabro, the Temple of Janus, the arches of
Titus and Septimius Severus, an archway at Bene-
ventum, the Arch of Constantine, arches at Ancona
and Pola, at Castel Vecchio in Verona, and others ;
and Serlio concludes his third book with some
account of works by Bramante, Peruzzi, and
Raphael. When Palladio took up the study of
Roman antiquities Serlio’s work was the acknow¬
ledged authority on the subject ; and not only did
Serlio, in fact, anticipate Palladio in nearly every
instance, but his survey covered a good deal more
ground. Palladio’s book was therefore by no
means such an epoch-making affair as it has been
generally represented to be, but he went one

better than Serlio in that he gratified the taste of
the time by restorations of the buildings he repre¬
sented. These restorations were quite hypotheti¬
cal, and in many cases improbable, yet they were
so apparently complete as to satisfy entirely
an appetite for classical knowledge as uncritical
as it was insatiable. One would willingly ex¬
change the whole set of Palladio’s restored anti¬
quities for a dozen trustworthy measured drawings
of the buildings as they were when he saw
them. That in making this criticism one is
not asking the impossible is proved by the fact
that while Palladio was at work on his fancy
drawings other men were actually endeavouring
to give a faithful record of the buildings them¬
selves. In 1575 Stefano du Perac published his
“ vestigi dell’ Antichita di Roma,” in which he
says that his object was “ rappresentar fidelmente
i residui della Romana grandezza.” In order to
show the historical untrustworthiness of Palladio’s
drawings, I give his version of what they both call
“the Temple of Peace” (the Basilica of Con¬
stantine), together with du Perac’s view of the
fragments actually remaining at the time ; and
both du Perac’s and Palladio’s views of the Pan¬
theon. There can be no doubt, from other evi¬
dence, that du Perac drew what he actually saw,
and his work has historical value to this day,
whereas Palladio’s version has retired to the limbo
of those academical exercises in restoration which
have been the plaything of architects from his
time to our own. It appears from a comparison
of the blocks in Serlio’s “ Architectura ” and
Marliani’s “ Urbis Romse Topographia,” that
Palladio used the work of his predecessors freely
and not always accurately. Marliani’s book
appeared in 1535; it was dedicated to Francis I.,
and is said to have gone through eleven editions
in the sixteenth century. On page 46 of the fifth
edition is given a plan of the Basilica of Constan¬
tine, with dimensions which differ from those
given by Palladio. But Marliani’s dimensions
are right and Palladio’s are wrong. Serlio’s
plan is identical with Marliani’s. Judged by
modern standards of research, Serlio’s work in
this direction is the more valuable of the two;
and as for the erudition displayed by Palladio,
almost any important building by Baldassare
Peruzzi — such, for instance, as the Palazzo
Massimi alle Colonne at Rome — -shows pro¬
founder study and a more intimate grasp of the
architecture of the past than the whole of Pal¬
ladio’s books and buildings put together.

Palladio’s extraordinary reputation is indeed a
remarkable illustration of the luck of history. It
has transcended the fame of abler men. It ap¬
pears and re-appears at regular intervals, and
in England, at any rate, the work of this architect

A ndrea Palladio.

'33

“THE TEMPLE OF PEACE” (BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE), AS SHOWN BY PALLADIO. ED. 1 5 70.

“THE TEMPLE OF PEACE,” AS SHOWN BY I)U PEKAC.

'34

A ndrea Palladio

THE PANTHEON, AS SHOWN BY PALLADIO.

THE PANTHEON, AS SHOWN BY DU PERAC.

Andrea Palladio.

>35

(whom Mr. Fletcher, with somewhat nauseating
iteration, describes as “our master”) should be
introduced to students with very great care and
numerous limitations ; for at recurring intervals
Palladio has been a sort of old man of the sea to
the art of architecture. There is assuredly a good
deal of chance in reputations ; an astute and able
man in a poor time can acquire a reputation
of more or less fictitious value, until somebody
takes the trouble to look into the work that
the man actually did. Palladio was certainly
happy in his opportunity. His fame rests partly
on his writings and partly on his architecture.
In England, at any rate, and I think to a con¬
siderable extent in Italy, his writings were the
principal factor in his success, for his four books
on architecture appeared at the precise psycho¬
logical moment. Somebody was wanted to codify
the result of the last hundred years of work.
The great effort of the Renaissance was over.
That whirlwind of energy which had swept
through every nook and cranny of the arts was
nearly spent, the reaction was setting in, and of
that reaction Palladio was the exact exponent.
More neat and orderly in his methods than Serlio,
more comprehensive than Vignola, with the touch
of pedantry in his nature that suited the times
and invested his writings with a fallacious air of
scholarship, he was the very man to summarize
and classify, and to save future generations of
architects the labour of thinking for themselves.
After the days of the intellectual giants came the
schoolmaster to put everything in order. What to
them had been facts and vital elements of expres¬
sion were now to be docketed as thin abstractions.
Architecture was to be put into a strait waist¬
coat in order to keep it respectable and adjust it
to the standard of the virtuoso. The result is
rather depressing. The neatness and precision of
the pedant are poor stuff after the clanging blows
of the heroes. Yet I suppose even heroes cannot
go on banging each other for ever, and no doubt
it is well that somebody should come and tidy up
before the next set-to. This seems to me the
explanation of Palladio’s commanding reputation
in Italy. More than any other man of his time,
he hit the taste and temper of his audience.
Under the guise of scholarship he was able to
justify the most astonishing follies in architecture,
and for the time his fame was paramount, but it
had no staying power. The Italians were much
too brilliant and versatile a people to acquiesce in
their strait waistcoat. They very soon turned
their back on their pedagogue, and indulged to
their hearts’ content in a wild orgie of exuberant
and unlicensed architecture. The impudence of
Borromini was the inevitable sequel to the dogma¬
tism of Palladio, much as in England the Gothic

revival was the result of Kent and Campbell’s
pedantry.

Palladio’s reputation in England in the eigh¬
teenth century, amounting almost to fetish wor¬
ship, was, again, partly the result of accident.
There is no doubt that by the beginning of the
sixteenth century Palladio’s treatise was generally
recognised as the authority on architecture. The
French, it is true, with the fine instinct which has
always guided their architecture, preferred Vignola.
But Palladio was so complete and systematic
that to others he was inevitable, and when Inigo
Jones came to Italy at the end of the sixteenth
century, he fell headlong into the arms of this
teacher, studied the antiquities of Rome by the
very untrustworthy light of Palladio, and came
back to England to put into practice the results of
this narrow if devoted study. It is unnecessary to
dwell on the commanding genius of the English
architect. He swept aside the puerilities of
Elizabethan design, and definitely set up Palladio
as the model of architecture. What would have
been gained if he could have come under the
influence of Peruzzi instead of Palladio is now
only a melancholy speculation. Fortunately,
Wren did break away from Palladianism. His
extraordinarily intelligent genius was much too
active and alert for any such hide-bound stuff,
and he became the great architect that he did
because he was in fact a very great constructor.
The weaker men who succeeded him had to fall
back on rule and text-book, and Palladio recovered
his ascendancy in England because his method
exactly adapted itself to the taste of the English
virtuoso of the eighteenth century.

The positive value of Palladio’s treatise on
architecture consists chiefly in its lucidity and
orderly arrangement. The chapters are short,
and on the whole to the point, though by no
means original. Palladio acknowledges his obli¬
gations to Vitruvius as his master and guide, and
indeed follows him closely, only omitting the
fables and anecdotes with which Vitruvius adorned
his pages. His illustrations (always excepting
the drawings of ancient buildings) are workman¬
like and very well drawn. His examples were
selected with fine taste, and he gives a more com¬
plete explanation of the orders than any treatise
hitherto published — an explanation, moreover,
that was easily grasped by his readers ; and I
think that in this lay the secret of his success.
Yet the book has some serious defects. There is
a large parade of learning, but where it is not
borrowed from other writers it is chiefly drawn
from Palladio’s inner consciousness ; and then
there is that uncomfortable habit of advertise¬
ment, for, out of the four books that Palladio
wrote, two are in fact mainly occupied with the

A ndrea Palladio.

136

illustration of his own inventions. His motives
may, of course, have been disinterested. He may
have honestly believed that no better illustrations
of his theory were to be found than his own
practice, and at least there is no trace of jealousy
in Palladio. He is as enthusiastic about the
merits of his contemporaries as he is about his
own ; but we regret his failure in historical sense.
Palladio was, it appears, a self-made, and to
some extent a self-educated, man. There is little
evidence that he received his training from any
architect, and he appears to have picked up his
knowledge as he could. To a man of Palladio’s
temperament, the desire to parade his learning
must have been irresistible, and he found his
chance in the preciosity of the later Renaissance.
It is in this, more particularly, that he seems to
me to have shown his weakness. Alberti, for
instance, the first serious modern writer on archi¬
tecture, was induced to write his book, not only
by his real interest in the art, but also by a certain
intellectual restlessness that was not to be satisfied
until it had got abreast of its subject and reduced
it to ordered shape. His interest lay in the facts
of building, but Alberti was a scholar and a gen¬
tleman, and not in the least concerned with the
advertisement of his own capacity as an architect,
whereas in this regard Palladio was a most con¬
spicuous offender, and the first to set a disastrous
precedent. Moreover, the real concern of all
great architects has been with building, not with
the dressing up of antiquity. It is true that
there was no escaping the orders in the sixteenth
century, yet other architects were able to avoid
the obsession of that fixed idea that the orders
summed up the whole meaning of architecture.
Philibert Delorme, for example, the first edition of
whose works appeared three years before Palladio’s
architecture, was able to devote himself at length
to the intricate problems of setting out of ma¬
sonry, and to matters of construction in his
“ nouvelles inventions pour bien bastir,” a matter
to which Palladio, with his stucco translation
of stonework, appears to have given the very
slightest consideration. I do not know if Palladio
was ever a play-actor, but the theatricality of his
design did not confine itself to his buildings.
The same insincerity, the same inability or un¬
willingness to grasp the essential facts of archi¬
tecture are visible in his books.

The “ Antiquities of Rome” do not remove this
impression. This little book (of which, by the
way, and of Palladio’s edition of Caesar’s Com¬
mentaries, Mr. Fletcher gives no account) was
published at Rome in 1557. It is a small octavo
of thirty-two pages, and is, in fact, a collection of
archaeological notes on Rome, taken from ancient
and modern writers. Palladio says that he was

induced to write it by the decay of the great
monuments of Rome, and also by his having come
into possession of a certain small book, entitled,

“ Le Cose Maravigliose di Roma,” “ tutto pieno
di strane bugie.” This little book was no other
than the famous twelfth century guide-book known
as the “ Mirabilia urbis Romae.” Palladio’s own
remarks are scarcely less strange than the lies
with which he says this book is filled. He states
that Rome was built in the year 5550 of the
world’s history, and offers an exact date for the
birth of Romulus and Remus. There are no
illustrations, though Palladio says he measured
many of the buildings with his own hands ; * and
the notes are brief descriptions dealing indiscrimi¬
nately with gates, bridges, aqueducts, fountains,
vestal virgins, Roman marriages, and the like. It
is a surprising fact that this worthless little book
went through at least eight editions, and was tran¬
slated into Spanish in 1589. Palladio’s edition of
the Commentaries of Caesar was published by
Franceschi at Venice in 1575. Apathetic interest
attaches to this book. Palladio states that he had
always interested himself in military matters, and
indeed there is a story that on one occasion he
surprised some officers by putting a number of
galley slaves through the drill of the Roman
legionaries. It appears that he directed the atten¬
tion of two of his sons, Horatio and Leonidas, to
the subject, and they set about making a series of
designs to illustrate Caesar’s campaigns. Their
untimely death left the work unfinished, and some
time afterwards Palladio published this edition as
a monument of his sons’ labours, asking his
readers’ pardon for any faults, on the ground that
in so far as they were the faults of his sons, they
were but young men, who had devoted themselves
to an excellent study ; and in so far as they were
his own, they were those of a father too distracted
by grief to collect the material necessary to com¬
plete the work. It does not appear whether Pal¬
ladio translated the Commentaries himself, or
used an existing translation. From the absence
of any reference to translation on the title-page
and in the preface, I am inclined to think the latter,
and the chief interest of the book lies in the
quaint imagination and curious research of the
illustrations.

Palladio’s position as an architect is much less
easy to determine. That he possessed great
knowledge of certain forms of architectural detail,

* There seems no doubt that Palladio did measure some, at
any rate, of these buildings, and left a good many of his notes in
manuscript. Some of them came into the possession of Lord
Burlington, who published his plans of the “Thermae of Rome “
in 1730 ; but a comparison of the various sixteenth century
measured drawings of Rome shows that plagiarism was the
regular rule ; and as students of this period are aware, writers
hardly ever acknowledged their obligations to each other.

Andrea Palladio.

137

HOUSE FOR THE TRISSINI AT MELEDO. FROM PALLADIO, ED. I57O.

and though not exactly a fine sense, yet a very
great feeling for proportion, is certain. He was,
moreover, a most ingenious planner, and, so far as
resource and knowledge go, a skilful builder. No
doubt if Palladio were among us now we should
think him a very great man ; but we live in an
unfavourable time, and one has to consider that
when Palladio practised the age of the giants was
hardly over. Vignola, and Giacomo Sansovino,
and Galeazzo Aiessi, were his contemporaries, and
it seems to me that any one of these men, in their
different ways, was a more original architect than
Palladio.* But it is when one compares him with
his immediate predecessors that the failure ap¬
pears. With all his skill and knowledge, Palladio
possessed little originality. He was a master of

* I recently came across a curious confirmation of the regard
in which Palladio was held during his life. A year or two before
1570, Pellegrini was appointed architect to the Cathedral of
Milan, and it appears that his methods and mistakes so exasper¬
ated a certain Martino Bassi of Milan, that the latter made a
formal protest to the Deputies of the Fabric, and cited in sup¬
port of his charges the written opinions of four eminent archi¬
tects — Palladio, Vignola, Vasari, and Gio. Battista Bertani of
Mantua. Bassi published his account of the whole affair at
Milan in 1570, and proved that Pellegrini was guilty of making
two parallel straight lines vanish to two different points on the
horizon.

the orders, and of temples, pro-style, peripteral ,
pseudodipteral, and all the rest, and he played
with the devices of his learning, combining them
and re-combining them with all the zest of a pedant.
But when it was all done there was no charm about
the work, or at least no more than the arid satisfac¬
tion to be derived from a meritorious student’s exer¬
cise ; and the reason is that there was little genuine
architectural imagination behind it. The best of
his town palaces, with all its ability, leaves one
cold. Contrast, for instance, the Palazzo Thieni,
at Vicenza, with Peruzzi’s Palazzo Albergati,
at Bologna. Palladio’s work is fine in proportion
and severe in treatment, yet it is not severe enough,
and the mechanical fa£ade makes no such appeal
to the imagination as the massive fortress-like
front of the Palazzo Albergati. Mr. Fletcher
gives a photograph of the Arco di Trionfo at Vi¬
cenza, attributed to Palladio. This, again, is a
characteristic piece of work, fine in proportion,
admirable in detail, cold, scholarly, accomplished,
but without a grain of imagination in it. Com¬
pare this with Sanmichele’s superb Porta del
Palio at Verona. Sanmichele used classical detail
not less severe than Palladio’s, and his treatment
is even simpler. Yet, while Palladio’s arch would

A ndrea Palladio.

i 38

be within the reach of any well-trained architec¬
tural student, the Porta del Palio is, I suppose,
about the finest gateway in existence, one of the
world’s masterpieces. Where Peruzzi and San-
michele used their brains, Palladio used his note¬
book. His sense of proportion has always been
held up to admiration as the greatest of his quali¬
ties. That sense seems to me to have been mainly
technical. A sense of proportion is shown not merely
in the exact adjustment of the proportion of the
order to certain recognised canons, it is shown to
the only purpose for which an architect need con¬
sider it, in what we generally call a sense of scale.
Now considered in this aspect, Palladio’s work
shows some conspicuous failures. In the first
place, he seems to have had little idea of the use
that can be made of a blank wall. Where Peruzzi
would have got quality from the plain surface,
Palladio breaks it up again and again with some
irrelevant order ; and even his warmest admirers
have to admit that he never knew how to handle
the ends of his buildings. In the new fronts that
he put to the Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza,
his only recognition of the angle is to double the
columns, and draw in the subordinate order,
though the front absolutely cries out for one
solid piece of wall. At the Palazzo Barbarano
he ran his engaged columns into each other, with
the result that there is no line at all ; and at the

Palazzo Valmarana he appears to have given up
the end as a bad job, for after putting a mighty
great order to the five central bays of the front, he
ends up with pilasters half the size, and a figure
above them. A man with a sense of scale in the
wider meaning of the term, with a grasp of the
imaginative possibilities of the different parts of a
building, would never have dropped into such
bathos as this.

The last criticism I have to suggest on Palladio's
architecture is that he shows little sense of ma¬
terial. Most of his palaces are of brick, covered
with stucco, and though no doubt he would have
preferred to build in stone or marble, he never
seems to have realised the possibilities of brick
itself, either in combination with stone or without
it. By this means he was able to spread his
money very thin. He gave his clients large pre¬
tentious palaces, and they appear to have been
satisfied. Yet a keener artist would have got
more out of his materials than this. Peruzzi did,
and Inigo fones, and more conspicuously Wren,
who at Hampton Court showed once and for all
what could be done with brick and stone properly
handled. It seems to me that an artist of deeper
conviction and greater power would not have been
content to go on imitating stone with stucco, and
producing what was in fact not very far removed
from stage architecture. There is this to be said
for Palladio, first, that it had been the practice of
the Romans to use their splendid brickwork as the
mere drudge of architecture, and in nearly every
case to cover it up with some other material, so
that Palladio may have considered it a point of
honour to follow the habit of the Romans ; and
secondly, that his patrons may have asked him
to make stone with bricks, and insisted on his
building those vast pretentious ill-constructed
palaces at an impossible price. A man of genius
would have found his way out of the difficulty,
but Palladio seems to me typical of the able
second-rate architect, of the man who can draw
well and design freely, but who fails as an artist
both in imagination and temperament.

Yet his life and work deserve close study if only
for the understanding of the architecture of the
last three hundred years ; and to enable the
student to grasp the fact that there is such a
thing as a standard in architectural design, and
one that he does well to observe until he is able
to walk by himself. I have ventured to suggest a
few criticisms of the work of this famous architect,
because it seems to me that in the erratic, I might
say chaotic, state of modern architectural taste,
there is danger of a too abrupt revulsion from
anarchy to rigid dogmatism in design ; and the
restoration of Palladio as an object of idol-wor¬
ship, talk about him as “ our master ” and the

DETAIL OF PALAZZO VALMARANA.
FROM PALLADIO, ED. I570.

Andrea Palladio.

139

VILLA ALMERIGO.
PALLADIO, ED. 1570.

like, are all in the direction of setting back the
hands of the clock, of perpetuating dulness. In
the present state of uncertainty the study of his¬
tory is extremely important, and it is essential
that careful critical study should be applied to the
architecture of the past, and that the facts should
be presented in true historical perspective and
proportion. It is with this intention that I have
offered these criticisms on Palladio’s work, but it
is not to be overlooked that as architects go he
was a learned man, and that within his narrow
limits he was a past-master of technique, and an
architect who, in such churches as those of
S. Georgio Maggiore and II Redentore at Venice,

showed himself capable of fine and distinguished
architecture. Although the really great quality of
Roman buildings seems to have escaped him,
although in his laborious search for details he
caught no glimpse of that magnificent daring in
construction which is the glory of Roman archi¬
tecture, he yet had a real passion for antiquity,
and definite convictions as to the path that archi¬
tecture should follow. There is something attrac¬
tive in the modesty which led him to believe it
was not for him to revolutionise art, but to find in
the past his guide for the future. He had not the
slightest sympathy with the impudent audacity of
ignorance, with what his biographer, Scamozzi,
calls “ la folle ambition de se singulariser, et de
passer pour createurs ou reformateurs de l’archi-
tecture.” The stand he made against this ten¬
dency was the essential service that Palladio
rendered to architecture. The position he occu¬
pies in the history of Italian art is not unlike that
filled by Sir William Chambers in regard to
English architecture of the eighteenth century.
Both men were purists, even pedants, and their
professional ability was not illuminated by any
Hash of genius. Yet both men made a conscious
and deliberate stand against the merely fashion¬
able license of their time, and endeavoured to
recall the art of architecture to the graver practice
of the past. It is a service that needs doing
again. The remains of the classical tradition was
the last effective influence in England, but that
influence practically came to an end a hundred
years ago, and the efforts of English architecture
since that date have given us nothing in its place
except any quantity of false sentiment. With
rare exceptions, the architectural exploits of the
nineteenth century were of the nature of guerilla
fighting ; they may or may not have been magnifi¬
cent, according to taste, but they were certainly
not war ; and the work of steadying English
architecture has yet to be done if it is ever to
resume its rightful place in the great procession
of history.

Reginald Blomfield.

Mr. Watts’s Colossal Equestrian Statue.

Mr. Watts's remarkable project is now
so far advanced that it is being cast in bronze
at the instance of Earl Grey, and will be set up
on the Matoppos as a memorial to Cecil Rhodes.
When the design is completely finished to his
mind, Mr. Watts intends to present it to the
Government, and I have suggested elsewhere that
the right thing would be for the Government or
some public body to find the bronze as a small
mark of penitence for our neglect of a public
servant, of esteem for a national benefactor, and
as a beginning of better things in the treatment of
artists when England is so fortunate as to breed
them.

The design of a man and horse in sculpture is
so difficult a thing that there is only one supremely
successful example on the colossal scale in the
world; for the Colleoni, constantly quoted as the
greatest, does not, for all its expression of threaten¬
ing energy, rank with the Gattamelata in plastic
•composition. Equestrian compositions, from the
time of the Renaissance, divide roughly into two

lines: those of the horse passant and of the horse
rearing. Donatello’s sources were the Greek
horses at Venice and the Marcus Aurelius. The
type of the other line was the Colossi of Monte
Cavallo, along with the equestrian figures of em¬
perors on various Roman coins; for the Par¬
thenon frieze has been familiar only for about a
hundred years. Leonardo’s projects, which never
reached bronze-founding, are divided between
these two types, the type of Donatello and the
type of the rearing horse. Modern design shows
a third variety, of which a familiar example is
the ecorche of a horse by M. Isidore Bonheur, as
remarkable for its design as for its anatomical
usefulness. M. Rodin’s admirable model for
the statue of General Lynch follows this closely
in some respects, as Mr. Tweed reminds me,
and Mr. Watts’s Hugh Lupus at Eaton Hall
is of the same family. The later design,
here illustrated, is varied from that by bring¬
ing the hind legs into line. A curious action re¬
sults, which appears intended to combine in one

41 PHYSICAL ENERGY.” BY G. E. WATTS, R.A.
(By permission of the Artist.)

Photo: Fredk. Hollyer.

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition.

pose a spring on the part of the horse and a
checking and transforming of that impulse by
the rider. This characteristic hesitation among
various things hinted at affects the design through¬
out, reappearing in the character of the surface
modelling; but the whole work is of a different
order from various pitiful groups that encumber
our public places. This aim at a plastic expres¬
sion of physical energy should find a site in Lon¬
don, which has at present only the fine Charles I.
and the decent King George to its credit.
At the same time the Duke of Wellington attri¬
buted to Boehm, with its ludicrous attendant
figures, ought to be sent to Aldershot, and the
jolly old scrag and London landmark that was
banished to that camp should be brought back
and replaced on the arch till we have something
overwhelmingly better to show.

If the first of these projects is carried out,
Mr. Watts will see at least one result of his life¬
long campaign for a grave public art in this
country. He will not, however, have been
granted what he asked for at first, a few public
walls to exercise his painting upon. Twenty
years after the shabby treatment he and other
artists received at the hands of the Houses of
Parliament Commission, and the refusal of the
London and North Western Railway to find him
paint and scaffolding for the decoration of Euston
station, he returned to the charge on behalf of the
younger generation. In 1863 he was not yet an
academician, and therefore still cherished illusions
about the aims and character of the Royal
Academy. He developed before the Royal Com¬
mission on that body a scheme for the training of
its students. His belief was that in this country

we have all that is needed in talent and in char¬
acter to produce an art reflecting what is majestic
in national history and aspirations, an art of gravity
and dignity; and that nothing was lacking for
this monumental revival but the walls to paint on,
the paint, the wages of painters, and the direction
of the young into this kind of art. He appealed to
the Academy to make a beginning by getting per¬
mission for some of its students to work upon
the walls of class rooms in the public schools
during the long vacations. He thought a start
might be made by reproducing the designs of
Flaxman in flat colour, and that academicians
like Maclise would be ready to furnish other
designs, and perhaps to superintend or appoint
superintendents. Such work would be provisional,
and might even be effaced later on, and replaced
by something else. And he thought that this
scheme would not only be a valuable training and
stimulus for the students, but would temper a
little the curious ignorance and contempt of art
in which the fine type of Philistine bred at our
public schools for the most part grows up. Mr.
Watts’s proposals fell apparpptly on deaf ears, but
perhaps now that the Prince of Wales has joined
himself to the critics of the Academy Schools the
Council of that body may ask themselves whether
its professedly principal object is being carried out
in any real sense, and whether a scheme like this
is not worth considering. Architects will look in
vain for the steady help of mural painters till
some school, be it the Academy or another, pro¬
vides wall space and materials, so that students
can get the necessary initial training.

D. S. MacColl.

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition.
A Discussion.

I.— -BY A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY.

There is no Exhibition held in London
which is so hard to criticise as the Arts and
Crafts. The variety of objects requires a know¬
ledge not only of design but, in most cases, of
workmanship. Very few, if any, critics, how¬
ever gifted, are equipped with these essentials.

Lord Byron’s verses are still true, that “ a man
must serve his time to every trade save censure.
Critics all are ready made.” We find in many
periodicals smart articles on this exhibition. The
fault of most art critics is that they know too

VOL. XIII.— L

little and write too much. It is easy to select a
few specimens and put them in the pillory ; but I
believe it could be proved that there are better
examples in this year’s show of jewellery, silver
work, furniture, glass, tiles, textiles, needlework,
metal work, etc., than are to be found in any
shop in London. Of course I refer to modern
work entirely. If this is so, and I am convinced
my assertion can be demonstrated, it seems hardly
fair to select some articles which are not of the
first rank and use them as pegs for a diatribe.
The original object of the Society — that of
exhibiting works that are not admissible in the

142

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition.

picture shows — has been successful : also that of
bringing forward the executant from his obscurity.
The whole aim has been to try and induce
people to value an article because thought and
labour have been expended on it. A piece of
jewellery, or square of printed cloth, is interesting,
and worth having, not on account of the material
used, but from the amount of skill in design and
technical knowledge or craft employed.

It has been urged more than once that the
exhibits are childish ; that may be so, but in any
effort to bring back an art or craft from over
elaboration, it is necessary to begin de novo. The
senseless application of ornament is the usual
resource of unskilful designers to hide their ignor¬
ance. It is much harder to produce an article
depending on form and proportion for its beauty
than one fuli of meaningless ornament and fussy
detail. We see this more strikingly in architecture.
Pure Classic is not employed now as it requires too
much knowledge and thought to work it in. It
is a favourite sneer to dub any demure and sober
design as affectation. This, no doubt, would have
been the critics' term for the introduction of the
notes of the cuckoo and quail in Beethoven’s
Pastoral Symphony, or the bird melodies in
Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. To some minds there
is no music unless it is played on a big brass band
with lots of drum and trombone to pick out
the air.

Though one objects to the arrogance of the
critic, that is no reason why some defects of the
exhibition should not be admitted and deplored.

A new departure was entered on this year,
namely, the introduction of recesses in the North
Gallery allotted to certain exhibitors and firms.
This, though giving the latter a better opportunity
of showing their productions, led to the inclusion
of several articles that certainly would not have
passed the Committee. In connection with this
subject, one may mention that, two exhibits that
have been particularly held up to ridicule were
rejected by the Committee three years ago. These

We are obliged to hold over the second part of
Mr. Lethaby’s account of Exeter Cathedral.
This will appear in the May number of the
Architectural Review, and also the first in¬
stalment of a series of articles on architectural
education, to which reference has already been
made. We shall begin with an account of the
German system, written by Mr. Bailey Saunders,
who drew up a report on this subject for the
London University Commission some years ago,
and has brought his investigations up tc date for
the present purpose. The May number will also

recesses were practically hors concours. This ought
to be remedied in future. Nothing should be ex¬
hibited that has not been approved by the Com¬
mittee. This unfortunate body has no light task.
We are constantly reminded of the labours of the
Royal Academy Council, but theirs are confined
to one class of exhibit. When you have to select
and arrange some two dozen different classes of
objects the labour is proportionately greater.

Few are in a position to compare accurately
the work of this year’s exhibition with the first
two. Were it possible to place them side by side
the improvement would strike one as immense.
Certain names unfortunately would be absent, such
as Morris and Burne-Jones, but the average level
would be much higher. Many of the exhibits are
remarkable for a restraint in design, that is a
noticeable feature of this year’s show. It seems
strange that here in England there should be so
small an appreciation of the work done by the
Society when its influence has almost revolution¬
ised the decorative work of the world. Let me
conclude with the words of M. Folcka, the
Swedish Representative on the jury of the Inter¬
national Exhibition at Turin.

“You all know where we have to look fur the
origin of this movement of which we see around
us — at this exhibition — the actual results; a move¬
ment which began more than thirty years ago,
and with which are inseparably joined the names
of William Morris, of Edward Burne-Jones, and
Walter Crane.

“ For us jurors at this First International
Exhibition it should be a duty to give our special
homage to the art of England, and I take liberty
to propose that we create a grand and unique
Diploma of Special Honour as an act of homage
and thankfulness to England.”

Truly a prophet is not without honour save in
his own country.

Mervyn Macartney.

A reply for the critics will appear in the May number.

te.

contain the first part of a critical examination of
the architectural discoveries at Knossos, by Mr.
Phene Spiers. We may join here in urging the
claims of the Cretan Exploration Fund, which
have been put anew before the public by Mr.
George Macmillan. Everyone who is stirred by
curiosity to know yet more of those secrets of
remote antiquity that lie a few spade-depths
below the surface of the ground, and can afford
to pay for that curiosity, should send Mr. Mac¬
millan a cheque.

English Mediaeval Figure -Sculpture.

CHAPTER V.— FIRST GOTHIC FIGURE-
SCULPTURE (1175-1280).

CARVING IN RELIEF.

Pre- Gothic figure-work had been almost
solely in relief, whether in Anglian cross-work,
in Saxon roods and panels, or in the Norman
tympana. We shall in the following chapters
show the Gothic sculptor as essentially a worker
in the round, and this different sense of his art
appears also in his reliefs. A new style appears
in them. For the slabs and panels of the earlier
sculpture had been detached from the church
fabric, either entirely separate from it, or added
to its structure as a picture might be. But in the
feeling of the Gothic artist the sculpture had to
be part of the building, and so the First Gothic
reliefs were carved not on, but in the scheme of
the construction. There may have been, also,
detached reliefs, carved in stone, in the thirteenth
century, of the same kind, as we have shown in
the Saxon art (Figs. 14, 15, and 19, in Chaps. I.
and II.). and in the Romanesque (Figs. 56 and 57
in Chap. II.). We give, for example, a Majesty
from a church at Durham (Fig. 84), a stone¬
carving in low relief, which seems certainly a work
of the thirteenth century. There is another at
Sompting, in Sussex, very similar, but of earlier
date, and coarser execution. The oblong shape

FIG. 84. — STONE RELIEF AT DURHAM.

(From a photograph kindly taken for the purpose by
Mr. Freeman, of Durham.)

of these slabs makes it likely that they were carved
for screens or some detached position. But it
was not till the fourteenth century that there
began the great trade in alabaster reliefs, and the
“ Alablasters,” as they were called, of Nottingham
and York, sent re-tables, screens, and figure-
panels to all parts of Western Europe, even to
Iceland. In the century of First Gothic art, the
furniture for the altar seems to have been ordered
from the carpenter and goldsmith— images and
tabernacle-work being of wood enriched with gild¬
ing and precious stones, or very commonly en¬
tirely in precious materials, gold, silver, and
ivory.55 This, at any rate, is the conclusion to
which we are led by the records and accounts,
which, while they abound in references to these
goldsmiths’ images, are deficient in hints of any
important pieces of marble or stonework being
used as church-furniture in English churches of
the First Gothic period.

We are, too, justified in believing that the con¬
structions necessary for shrines and screens were
generally in the hands of the goldsmith, when we
see how Henry III. made his marble shrine for
the Confessor at Westminster in a design un¬
known to English mason-craft, with mosaic in¬
crustations, upon which we are not surprised to
see the signature “ Petrus civis Romanus ” en¬
graved. This seems evidence that up to 1250 the
native marbler had not attempted elaborate
shrines.56 In the latter part of the thirteenth
century he asserted himself, as for example in the
monuments of Archbishop Gray, at York, 1260,
and of Bishop Bridport, at Salisbury, 1263. After
which, as our later chapters will relate, stone and
marble tombs were constantly carved with figure-
reliefs. In such works the mason-imager appeared
by the side of the goldsmith-imager, and was
commonly employed upon marble and stone fur¬
niture, sedilia, Easter sepulchres, altar-screens, as
well as on shrines and tombs, and covered all
with figure-work.57

In the First Gothic art, however, the talent ot
the relief-carver had been used strictly for the
larger architectural work. Mason and sculptor,
as has been said, were one person, and accordingly
his reliefs were worked in the scheme of his build-

55 The Exchequer Rolls show that there were fifteen golden
statues set with precious stones ready for the shrine of the Con¬
fessor in 1261. See also in the Liberate Rolls of 1242 payment
for silver tabernacle to ivory image at Westminster.

5r’ The accounts of the works done at Westminster in 1253
suggest an intention of copying the shrine of St. Alban for that
of the Confessor. The mosaic erection is dated to c. 1268.

si A distinct entry as to the mason-imager is in the Close Roll
of 1259, where John of Gloucester, the king’s mason, is ordered
to supply five images of free stone.

L 2

r44

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

ing — that scheme which, in the thirteenth cen¬
tury, developed the wall as tiers of arcades.
Between the extrados of the arcade-arches of one
tier, and the level springing of the next, were
interspaces (spandrels) which made convenient
fields for sculpture, in a way that was, as our last
chapter explained, agreeable to the building
genius of the Gothic artist. Similarly when the
arch compassed two subsidiary arches, as so fre¬
quently happened in the development of Gothic
construction, a spandrel ready for decoration
declared itself, which, in many cases, became filled
with figure-sculpture. These interspaces, also,
under the impetus of Gothic art, developed struc¬
tural decorations — i.e. geometrical piercings out¬
lined with moulded voussoirs — the trefoils and
quatrefoils which were the beginnings of tracery.
When, as often happened, such openings were
blind, they afforded an excellent lodgment for
figure-sculpture, and advantage of them was
largely taken.

In these three positions, therefore, First Gothic
figure-relief found its occasions, and the uses
made of them fall broadly into divisions under
the attendant conditions of the architecture.
When developed above a wall arcade, the span¬
drels provided a running frieze for a continuous
set of subjects level with the eye, as in Worcester
quire. Similarly in the scheme of the thirteenth
century bay, the triforium of the arcade gave a
place for bolder figure-work, ranged in a connected
theme, as along the Lincoln “ Angel Ghoir,” or in
the transept ends at Westminster. So also such
quatrefoils, trefoils, etc., as came in the heads of
structural arcades, as, for example, in the Wells
front, allowed figures and subjects to be set in their
recesses. Finally, in the single spaces of great
doorheads, we have sculpture-fields, in which the
interest is concentrated, and where a different
type of figure-relief appears, in this position
rapidly developing into the statue. So, for ex¬
ample, we have the sculptured Majesty of Lincoln,
and the figures of the Madonna so usually set in
the chapter-doorways, as at Westminster. We
will, accordingly, take the thirteenth-century re¬
liefs in the above order, and deal first with those
subject-reliefs which run in continuous series.

Arcade-structure had been largely practised in
the Romanesque art, and its later ornament after
Stephen's reign had been very profuse and varied.
This ornament grew less exuberant in Gothic
style, but the arcade did not immediately lose its
Romanesque tradition — at least this is the case in
the South and West of England. In the North,
as already said, the Gothic evolution of building
found its motive in the rejection of the rich sculp¬
ture of the later Romanesque, and the figure-
ornament, which had been largely employed at

A. G.

FIG. 85. — BRISTOL. ELDER LADY CHAPEL. C. 1200.

Durham, Adel, and Bridlington, is entirely absent
from the graceful arcadings of the First Gothic
abbeys of Yorkshire and the North. It is diffe¬
rent, however, southward and westward in Eng¬
land, where we can see in the First Gothic arcades
an immediate derivation from the ornamentation
of Rochester, Barfreston, and Malmesbury. At
first we have the same symbolic representations,
zodiacal beasts, warriors and dragons. The
“ Elder” Lady Chapel, as it is called, of Bristol
Cathedral, the first building of which was c. 1200,
gives a good example (Fig. 85) illustrating the
direct descent of the Early English carving
craft from the Romanesque of the Wiltshire
and Gloucestershire tympana, as shown in our
preceding chapters (see Figs. 26 and 48). At
Bristol the figure-work is on scarcely a larger
scale than on the 1186 arch-moulds of St. Mary’s
Chapel, Glastonbury, or on the capital of Wells
porch (see Fig. 81, Chap. IV.). In the Wells-
triforium, as one of our illustrations of the Wells
label-heads (see Fig. 66, Chap. IV.) incidentally
showed, was spandrel-work of this kind, but of
finer finish. In the Chapels at the eastern end
of the Worcester Quire — that part of the new
“ front ” which was probably the first built,
c. 1224 — the wall-arcades have a series of span¬
drels carved with fabulous beasts and fighting
knights, elegant and distinct in design. We have
here probably the latest instance on a big scale of
these Romanesque motives which we have traced
upwards from the rude beginnings of Scandinavian
design. In the same work, but farther west, at
Worcester the wall-arcades of the eastern transept
show quite a different type, which we may
speak of as the inauguration of Gothic sculpture.
Though very many of the spandrel-carvings have
been, unfortunately, touched up or entirely re¬
worked in the restorations which afflicted Worces¬
ter Cathedral in 1857, still there remains enough
to show the distinct style. On the south side is a

1 45

English Mediczval Figtire- Sculp hire .

series of some twenty spandrels giving a detailed
representation of the Doom. The whole Gothic
drama of the subject is set out with all its stock
■characters— the angelic trumpeters, the bursting
tombs, the mouth of hell (Fig. 86), the tortures
of the damned, and the angel leading the saved to
glory (Fig. 87). In the liveliness of the gestures
and the emotions depicted there is an echo of the
Vezelay sculpture, and we may trace the style to
those traditions of Cluniac sculpture which have
been suggested for the sculpture of the West Mid¬
lands (seeChap. III.), but the technique of the work
is shallow, and the treatment dry and lean as com¬
pared with the Burgundy work. There has pro¬
bably been much damage from the scraping process
of restoration, but while the style is that of Gothic
stone-carving, we recognise little advance on the
goldsmith’s art of fifty years earlier, as we saw

A. G.

FIG. 86. — WORCESTER. SOUTH-EAST TRANSEPT.

this, for example, in the Gloucester candlestick
(Fig. 38, Chap. II.), or in the Lincoln reliefs
(Figs. 41 to 46, Chap. III.). On the north side
the spandrels represent scenes from Old and New
Testament history, and not much of the ancient
carving is left undamaged. The style here is
different again, with a quietude which is much in
contrast with the energy of the Doom spandrels.
One might trace an artistic descent from the re¬
liefs (see Fig. 58, Chap. III.) in Kelloe churchyard.
There is yet another type of work in these Wor¬
cester spandrels. Some half-dozen on either side
of the quire to the east of the transept are to
be noted as apparently representing the history
of the building of the cathedral. We are shown
the “ master-mason ” and the “ working-mason,”
and the Bishop, who presents the model of the
church on the altar. This last is perhaps the
most accomplished of all the Worcester works,
and in its technique is but little inferior to what

A. G.

FIG. 87. — WORCESTER. SOUTH-EAST TRANSEPT.

we shall find in the earliest reliefs on the west
front of Wells (see on to Fig. 104).

Such was the Gothic sculpture of 1225 : at
Westminster we can see that of twenty years
later. It occupies parallel positions to that at
Worcester, in the spandrels of the wall-arcades in
the eastern chapels and in the north and south
transepts. The misfortune at Westminster has
not been restoration but a wanton destruction to
make room for later monuments, and a surface
decay of the stone, which has obliterated all the
edges and tool marks. We show the best pre¬
served of what must once have been very beauti¬
ful sculpture. The attitudes and expressions of
these little figures, and the skill and knowledge
of their relief, are as perfect as can be, and the only
archaism perceptible lies in the experimental plac-
ings and attitudes of the figures in order to fit

FIG. 88. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAPEL OF S. EDMUND.
(From a photograph kindly lent by S. Gardner, Esq.)

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

1 46

A. G

FIG. 89. — WESTMINSTER ABBEY. NORTH TRANSEPT. WEST SIDE.

them to the spandrel shapes. Foliage is called
in to help the demi-angel with the crown (Fig. 88),
but the maladroitness visible in our illustration
(Fig. 89), where it is attempted to fill the field
with figure-work only, is still more apparent in
some of the neighbouring compositions.

At Salisbury we have reliefs to be dated from
c. 1265 to 1275. Those on Bishop Bridport’s
tomb-canopy are the earlier, and though much
defaced, are probably the work of the sculptors
who afterwards carved in the Chapter-house.
The wall-arcades there remain with their full
series of subject-reliefs in what may be called
good preservation. Restoration has been hard
at work on them, but it has been of a different
kind from the unintelligent, coarse substitutions
of Worcester. Moreover, the sympathetic and
learned skill of W. Burges, who was in charge,
provided for his renewals the hand of a competent
sculptor. Since, however, in this renewal old
and new were both together painted, and subse¬
quently, when the painting began to peel off,
were again stripped to the stone, the distinctions
between the actually genuine work and what was
so cleverly imitated to match it are rendered
obscure. Fortunately, we have from Burges a
detailed description 58 of the sculptures as he saw
them first and admired them, and with hints from
this we can pick our way to the most genuine
examples. It will be seen that though the Salisbury
work lacks the intrinsic First Gothic charm which
everything has at Westminster — perhaps because
there we have merely to deal with decay, whereas
restoration, however clever, inevitably destroys as
much as it preserves — still we can recognise a skill
in grouping and composition which is a distinct
advance on anything we have at the “ Abbey.”
The plastic expression and balance in Lot and his
daughters turning their backs on the pillar of salt

58 “ The Iconography of the Chapter House.”

(Fig. 90), or in Jacob’s brethren setting forth to
Egypt (Fig. g 1 ), will establish this point; and in
most of the compositions this merit has at any
rate not been altered in the recarving, though
heads and hands are almost entirely new through¬
out. We have, however, picked out our examples
to show some of the few ancient heads remaining.
And the cleverness of Burges' restoration will be
seen by comparing the heads of Noah (Fig. 92)
and Pharaoh (Fig. 93), which are genuine, with
that of Lot (Fig. go), which is the one head added
in this piece, or with the heads put by Burges’
sculptor to all except one of ‘‘ Jacob's Brethren ”
(Fig. 91). The draperies throughout are genuine,
and it can be seen that their treatment is different
from both what it was at Westminster and what
we shall presently illustrate at Wells. Indeed, it
shows its later date by its distinct step outside the
First Gothic manner.

,1. G

FIG. 90. — SALISBURY. CHAPTER HOUSE. “LOT AND
HIS DAUGHTERS.”

(Lot’s head.has been restored, and also partly the hands
and arms of the other figures.)

147

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture .

A.G.

FIG. 91. — SALISBURY. CHAPTER HOUSE.

“JACOB’S BRETHREN.”

(All the heads of the figures, except the third from the right
and various hands, arms, etc., are restorations.)

A good deal of colour remained on these reliefs
when their renovation was undertaken thirty years
ago, and W. Burges, a born colourist, made a
striking success of its renewal, as great a success
as it is likely modern methods can achieve. Still,
for all this, the question of the effect of the mediae¬
val colouring on architecture and sculpture cannot
logically be judged on the basis of such restora¬
tions, however clever, at the hands of our Revival
architects Burges, Street, or Butterfield. They
are the best we can do, but to take them as ex¬
amples of what they imitate is an unfairness to
ancient art, for, like any other art effect, that of
colour can be effective only by its sincerity. A
learned imitative restoration represents only the
knowledge of the restorer. As such it may charm

the scholar who can recognise the culture and
imagination it implies ; but it creates no general
expression of value for the criticism of the genuine
art of the thirteenth century. It is therefore a
shallowconnoisseurship which, looking at mediaeval
architecture painted up to the nineteenth century
standard of scholarship, exclaims, “ how barbaric
and crude this mediaeval colouring must have
been ! ” ; or which argues that cathedrals were
meant to appear solemn and shadowy in the drab
of plain stone surfaces, and calls the painting of
his sculpture a faux pas on the part of the mediaeval
artist. Like Greek sculpture mediaeval figure-
work was undoubtedly always painted, sometimes
heavily, sometimes delicately.59 That in the
thirteenth century this painting would be simple
and direct we can call in evidence the whole record
of the thirteenth-century art. On backgrounds
of blue or red the figures stood out in pale tints
enforced with brown and gilding; the flesh colours
were palely rendered, the lips and the eyeballs
picked out darker, the draperies white, green, and
black, powdered with gold and coloured patterns.
How these colours were harmonized, what was
the art — the expressive glory — of their combina¬
tion, if we have no examples in sufficient preser¬
vation to show us directly, yet there is left us
a fair means of estimating. If we turn to the
contemporary manuscripts, to the Apocalypse
at Trinity College, Cambridge, for example,
or to that exhibited in the show cases of
the British Museum Library, or, indeed, to any
English thirteenth-century manuscripts, we find
in their illuminations and miniatures not only the
delicate drawing and plastic liveliness which we
might expect from the contemporaries of the
Westminster and Salisbury relief-carvers, but a
quality of colour, whose analogue we may find
in ancient eastern carpets, or, close on our own
day, in the masterpieces of Japanese artists. Our
attempted restorations of this colouring would
naturally be_failures, just as surely as our paintings,
for all their effort, do not show the
lively colour sense of the great Vene¬
tian paintings; just as surely as our
imitations of the Eastern arts are
vulgar and unpleasing. And it shows
some hardihood on the part of our
artistry with its conscious weakness
in architectural decoration to say
“ sour grapes ” to the brightness and
splendour of mediaeval architectural
sculpture.

Only here and there now can we
see the actual vestiges of the an¬
cient colouring, and where they

59 The Liberate Rolls of Henry III. abound
in orders for the painting of images.

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture.

remain they are the ground colours
which at the time of the painting
were materially altered by glazings
and diapers. Nothing really repre¬
sentative of the thirteenth century is
left us. Painted in tempera, it must
have faded and been continually re¬
touched. The old quire screen of
Salisbury, now set in the north-east
transept (and sadly flaunted by the
grimacings of the modern church fur¬
nishings opposite), has some sugges¬
tion, perhaps, of the effect of coloured
relief-carvings. The backgrounds of
full colour can still be discerned,
and the gilded angel -wings, the
warm flesh-colours, and the cool
grey draperies are indications of the
delicious harmonies so often to be seen in the
manuscripts. The whole must have had a lively
smiling countenance, each spandrel with its min¬
strel angel and all gay with colour and gilding
(Figs. 94, 95). The date of this work may be
put at c 1270, almost on the edge of the period
which we have called that of First Gothic
sculpture.

Passing to the larger relief-sculptures of the
triforium, our great thirteenth-century example is
that of the Lincoln “Angel Choir, ” and we take
it next (though the similar reliefs at Westminster
are rather earlier in date) because its motive is most
directly that of the Salisbury quire screen, but
carried out on a big scale at a height of some forty
feet from the floor. The notion, as shown in
the easternmost bays, has been to carve a choir of
jocund angel minstrelsy looking down from the
triforium spandrels. Lincoln, in the wall-arcades
of St. Flugh’s quire, had some angel reliefs on a
small scale carved between the labels. In the
“Angel Choir” the idea seems at first to have
been as simple. But when the work had advanced
so that by the taking down of St. Hugh’s apse
the new building could be
joined up to the transept, a
more serious artist, and one
whose art was pregnant with
a mediaeval mysticism, ap¬
peared on the scene, and
his influence put a deeper
note into what was primarily
a decorative composition.

The Lincoln angels come
in aptly here, too, because
the assertion has been made
that they were clearly un¬
coloured, and that no traces
of paint have been found
on them. Our illustration

FIG. 93. — SALISBURY. CHAPTER HOUSE. “ PHARAOH'S DREAM.

(Fig. 99 a) of the central angel with crowns disproves
this. It will be seen that the camera discloses a
diapered pattern on the wall face, and we can
scarcely doubt that the usual thirteenth-century
colour-treatment was given here as elsewhere, and
that a dark background spangled with gold stars
was painted for all the figures.

Our plan (p. 151) gives the subjects distin¬
guished by letters, so that the reader may follow
our analysis of their peculiarities and our ascrip¬
tions to various hands. In each bay it is to be
noted that there is a central angel and two
flanking figures. C. R. Cockerell, in his well-
known treatise 60 written in 1S51, gave very defi¬
nite meanings to all of them, so that the angels
are often called by his names. We have, how¬
ever, no faith in his interpretations, and prefer
to indicate each work by the paraphernalia and
attitudes given by the sculptor. Looking at their
art, then, as being the most interesting gauge
of varying authorship, we at once perceive a
marked difference between the eastern and the

60 “ Iconography of the West Front of Wells Cathedral.”

FIG. 94.— SALISBURY. ANCIENT CHOIR SCREEN.

(Now in North-East Transept.)

English Medieval Figure-Sculpture.

149

a. a.

FIG. 95. — SALISBURY. ANCIENT CHOIR SCREEN.

(Now in North-East Transept.)

western angels. A distinct division is marked in
the middle bay, where the central angel on either
side belongs clearly to the western series, which
in style is much superior to the eastern set. We
may conclude that as in similar cases, the work
was begun with the east front of the new building,
and with the erection of the first two or three
bays which could be built outside the existing
apse of the church. The date of this beginning
is said to have been in 1256. So since these
carvings have been worked and built before
fixing into the work, the first set may belong
to that year. There are in these four central
full-fronted angels with spread wings, and ten
flanking angels. The larger number of these —
all the flanking figures except one, and two of
the central angels — would seem to be from one
hand, and they are marked A in plan. We give
as an example of this style the harping angel
from the north side (Fig. 96 a). It will be seen
how the figure is short and stout, with baggy
folds of drapery broadly rendered, and it shows
particularly well-developed feet. The heads in this
style are large featured and with pleasant expres¬
sions, but the dust now settled on their noses
gives them in the photographs an expression not
intended by the sculptor ; still generally it may be
said that their quality is not of much distinction :
they must rank with the decorative sculpture of
the Salisbury angels. The other three figures —
the two opposite centrals in the east bay, and one
of the flanking angels, marked B in plan, are from
a different hand. They are longer in their anatomy
with narrow shoulders and wide hips, the heads
queerly modelled with Jewish noses, the draperies
being full and confused, while the wings are turned
upwards at the tips instead of as in the A’s.

Moreover, despite their somewhat gro¬
tesque appearance when viewed Irom
the triforium directly opposite, below
in the quire they show an emotional
suggestion which is less conventional
than in the A’s, though the quality of
the execution is perhaps on a no higher
plane. All these eastern angels are
pedestailed on baggy clouds, and their
hair, which is coarsely rendered in
blobby curls, is bound with fillets.

In the central angels of the mid-bays
of the “ choir ” we come to an evident
change of quality. Since, as we know,
the work of building was protracted —
the new shrine not being ready for the
saint till 1280 — we may suppose an
interval of some years before the angels
of the western bays were carved. They
show a different motive and a su¬
perior class of execution. This is
not perhaps the case with the angel on the north
side close upon the transept, but is certainly so
with the other flanking angels on the same side
(which we have marked C) as well as with the
two centrals — that with the crowns (shown in
Fig. 99 a), with the angel of the the scales (Fig.g8 a),
and those shown in Figs. 96c and d. They all
have the same large heads and full features, which
we saw in the A’s, and mostly the same cloud
bases, but the expressions are graver and finer,
and the draperies more functional to the attitudes.
They differ, however, from one another not a little
in quality ; the flanking angel that swings the
censer is almost as fine as anything (Fig. 96 d),
and the angel of the scales (Fig. 98 a) is no mean
achievement.

Still there is a clear gap between the C’s and
the three great angels which we have marked D.
It is the character, mystic and intense, breathed
intc these three reliefs (Figs. 98 b and 99 b), which
has established the reputation of the Lincoln angels
as some of the most remarkable of mediaeval works
in sculpture. The concentration and dignity of
the intellectual expressions, and the sure touch
shown in the technique of their sculpture, give
the figures a distinction which it is difficult to
match elsewhere. Their fault is that they are
adapted to be seen rather from opposite than from
below.

Besides the distinction of their quality, there
are certain treatments of detail which sufficiently
mark the D figures as coming from a different hand.
The heads are smaller, with short necks, and deli¬
cate features, the draperies are clearly and simply
cut, with strong functional lines. A peculiarity is
to be seen in the fine female heads shaped triangu¬
larly by the wimple, which in each case appear in

English M ed iccva l Figure-Sculpture

150

A. 0

b. MADONNA. NO. 30. “ F ” TYPE.

FIG. 96. — LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. ANGEL CHOIR.

English Mediceval Figure-S culpture .

*5 i

NORTH SIDE.

i. Angel, full front, looking right, reading roll

I. 2.

EAST WINDOW.

i •

l 3.

[ 4
II. \ 5-
6.

[ 7-

III. 8'

IV.

full front, holding sun and moon.

facing to left, playing harp,
facing to right, holding palm and roll,
facing to left, playing on viol.

full front, playing on lute.

full front, but leaning over and reading roll.

full front, holding up two crowns.

full front, holding palm and roll.

in profile, looking to right, swinging a censer

full front, with scales.

, 12. Full front, showing wounded side, small angel pre-
V senting figure.

l' 13. Angel, looking to right, with spear.

V 14- full front, with sword and figure, “Adam and

Eve.”

15- , full front, with crown held up.

SOUTH SIDE.

16. Angel, full front, leaning to left, right arm raised
showing scroll.

full front, crowned and holding harp.

full front, right arm raised, with extended
roll.

turning to left and blowing trumpet, left leg
crossed over right.

full front, extending a long roll, showing feet.

full front, extending both arms raised.

facing to left and blowing double trumpet,
right leg over left.

II.

full front, with pipe and tabor.

full front, holding book to breast. Right arm I
raised, wings crossed. )

full front, looking to left and reading roll,
wings crossed.

turning sideways, with lure and hawk. ^ *

full front, with scroll in lap, wings crossed.

full front, but leaning into angle away from
arch, with book held up.

full front, but looking to side, holding up small V.
figure in hands.

30. Madonna and Child, with small censing angel.

EAST TRANSEPT (ST. HUGH’S). C. 1 195.

FIG. 97. — LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. PLAN OF ANGEL CHOIR.

(The Roman numerals indicate the bays from the east : the capitals the works which seem to have the same qualities of style.)

the bases. We do not show the angel with the pipe
and tabor (No. 23 in plan) but with it the female
head is attached to a dragon tail : and very similar
human headed dragons take the place of supporting
clouds in the figures which we have marked as E
and F. Two of these — the central angel (No. 26
in plan) and the flanking Madonna (Fig. 96 b) —
have merits which might rank them with the great
D figures. But the sentiment of their sculpture is
different : the heads, too, are larger and with long
necks, the whole attitudes being less statuesque, and
the draperies with a somewhat different handling.
These E’s and F's, though we distinguish them
as showing different methods of treatment, as for
example in the wings and also in the attitudes,
may possibly be from the hands of one sculptor.
We may regard him as working by the side
of and influenced by the great creator of the
D figures, but with an individuality of his own.
As a sample of E, we give (Fig. 99 d) the flanking
angel of the fourth bay from the east on the
south side. This is a charming figure, lively and
graceful, as is also the central angel with the hawk
next to it ; with the similar two flanking angels
to the east they are clearly from one hand.
But still more sprightly is the “ Madonna ” (Fig.
96b), which we associate with the other flanking
angel of the fifth bay (Fig. 99 c), and with the

spandrel on the opposite side, that which instead
of an angel has a man showing his wounded side.
These are all fine sculptures, but their style —
the long necks of the figures, their arch expres¬
sions, the airy poising of their heads, as well as
the arrangement, and picturesque detail of the
fluttering wings — can hardly have come from the
same hand which moulded the stern-faced, con¬
centrated sculpture of the “ Expulsion from Para¬
dise ” (Fig. 98 b).

On the whole, then, we conceive the sculptors
of the sixteen spandrels of the western bays to have
been three persons. The first of these, whose work
we initial C on the plan, may have been the sculp¬
tor of the A’s of the eastern bays, who, after the
interval, continued his work with greater skill and
under a new inspiration. That inspiration we can
scarcely doubt to have been derived from the
sculptor of the great angels, initialled D. But side
by side with them both was another fine sculptor
(or possibly there were two), whose art was not so
stern and intellectual, but graceful and plastic ;
and his masterpiece must be allowed to be the
“ Madonna.”

E. S. Prior.

A. Gardner.

(To be continued.)

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

a. ANGEL WITH SCALES. NO. II. “C” TYPE.
(From a Photograph kindly lent by S. Gardner, Esq.)

FIG. 98.— LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. ANGEL CHOIR.

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture .

153

b. ANGEL HOLDING SMALL FIGURE. NO. 29. “ D ” TYPE.

FIG. 99. -LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. ANGEL CHOIR.

Current Architecture

Lloyd’s Registry. — This building is
situated at the western corner of Fenchurch
Street and Lloyd’s Avenue, a new street recently
formed through the site of some old East India
warehouses, and has a frontage of 70 feet to the
former and 150 feet to the latter thoroughfare.
It was necessary to provide larger and more com¬
modious office room for the increasing business ;
a large store or strong-room for the books and
registers of the Society ; a library and a luncheon
room ; also classification and committee rooms, a
board-room, and a museum in which to store
models of ships and machinery and other memo¬
rials of the Society’s work. The general scheme
has been a free treatment of Georgian classic.
The roof has sufficient pitch to be visible from
the street. Portland stone has been mainly used
for the facades, with bands of Hoptonwood stone
on the Fenchurch Street frontage. There is a
large amount of carving on the facades, including
a frieze running round the main building above
the door and window heads, by Mr. George
Frampton, R.A., who is also responsible for four
bronze figures between the rusticated columns
on the ground floor, which represent ancient and
modern shipping. Professor Gerald Moira has
executed the decoration of the vaulting over the

Ground Floor P/an

main staircase and upper hall, and is also deco¬
rating the ceiling of the board-room with painted
panels emblematical of the sea. The upper and
lower halls are, with the staircase, built of Devon¬
shire marble, and the stairs are of Carrara marble.
Round the walls of the upper hall is a frieze
designed by Mr. F. Lynn Jenkins. The interior
walls of the board-room have a scheme in Numi-
dian, black Belgian and Irish green marbles, and
the dado is of African mahogany with richly-
carved panels. Messrs. Mowlem and Co. were
the contractors. The whole of the fittings and
furniture have been specially designed by the
architect, Mr. T. E. Collcutt.

Alterations and Additions at Corn-
bury Park, Oxon, for Vernon Watney, Esq.—
The whole of the new work was built of stone
procured from the quarries on the estate. This
stone was highly commended by Evelyn. The
whole of the interior has been more or less re¬
modelled. The oakwork has been carried out by
Messrs, }. Garvie and Sons, of Aberdeen, and the
builders were Messrs. Higlett and Hammond, of
Guildford. Mr. John Aitchison was clerk of the
works, and Mr. [ohn Belcher, A.R.A., the archi¬
tect.

LLOYD’S REGISTRY. PLANS.
T. E. COLLCUTT, ARCHITECT.

C ter rent A rchitecture

155

Photo : E. Dockree.

LLOYD’S REGISTRY. GENERAL VIEW.

T. E. COLLCUTT, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

15 6

LLOYD’S REGISTRY. VIEW IN LLOYD’S AVENUE.
T. E. COLLCUTT, ARCHITECT.

Photo : E. Dockree.

Current A rchitecture

157

VOL. XIII. — M

LLOYD'S REGISTRY. THE UPPER HALL.
T. E. COLLCUTT, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture

Photo: S. B. Bolus and Co.

LLOYD’S REGISTRY. THE BOARD ROOM.

T. E. COLLCUTT, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture

1 59

CORNBURY PARK, OXON. NEW PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE. Photo : S. B. Bolas ami Co.

JOHN BELCHER, A.R.A., ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture

1 60

Photo: S. B. Bolas and Co.

CORNBURY

CORRIDOR.

PARK, OXON. THE VESTIBULE ANI)
JOHN BELCHER, A.R.A., ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture ,

1 6 r

C — 111 — ~w;

CORNBURY PARK, OXON. THE HALL
JOHN BELCHER, A.R.A., ARCHITECT.

Photo : S. B. Bolus and Co.

Citrrent A rckitecture ,

162

Photo : S. B. Bolas and Co

CORN BURY PARK, OXON. THE LIBRARY.
JOHN BELCHER, A.R.A., ARCHITECT.

Ctirrent Architecture

163

Books.

I-'NGLISII WOODWORK.

“ English Interior Woodwork of the XVI., XVII. and XVIII.
Centuries.” By El. Tanner, junr., A.R.I.B.A. I’rice 36s. nett.
London. B. T. Batsford, 94, High Holborn. 1902.

This volume contains a series of carefully
measured drawings of the best and most characteristic
examples of panelling and other interior fittings. It
ought to prove very instructive to the student, and
most useful to the designer. Indeed, it is open to
question whether Mr. Tanner's labours will not chiefly
result in a saving of trouble to that large and ever¬
growing class who having no ideas of their own will
appropriate all they can. Against this fear we may
set a feeling of satisfaction that such designers will be
led aright — since they so badly need leading. Mr.
Tanner discriminates carefully between a number of
styles and enumerates the few first attempts, now
extant, of Italian workmen to introduce Classical forms.
Of these, which generally take the shape of Italian
ornament grafted upon late English Gothic, he men¬
tions examples at Hampton Court, King’s College
Chapel at Cambridge, the Vine and Christ Church
in Hampshire, and a few more. These specimens
of Italian work were imitated in many country churches,
wherever a school of native carvers, whether in wood
or in freestone, existed. They were and are very
obnoxious to “ restorers,” and in hundreds of cases
have perished ; to which cause I should be disposed
to attribute their rarity rather than to any feeling on
the part of workmen, that “ the style was too severe
for the English to handle,” as Mr. Tanner supposes.
He points out that the Classic style was chiefly re¬
commended to our forefathers by the Dutch and
German examples. Many German pattern books
were to be had in the sixteenth century, but our artists
improved on the florid style fashionable in the Low
Countries and on the Rhine. He traces to these
sources many such “ vile vagaries ” as “ the pedestal¬
like pilasters surmounted by human bodies,” and the
multiplication of parts without knowledge “ of the
grammar and general composition of Classic and
Renaissance work.” The style then prevalent in
England, the last phase, namely, of Gothic paid little
or no attention to general proportions. “ Such periods
of doubt and uncertainty,” says Mr. Tanner, “had to
be passed through, for the maturity of a national
style, such as that attained under the guidance of
Inigo Jones, was not to be accomplished in one turn
of the wheel.” The most important point to be noted
in this last sentence is the evidence it affords of the
complete conversion of some at least of our modern archi¬
tects, to see the absurdity of what was a stock principle
with the critics and others who wrote during the
prevalence of the so-called “Gothic Revival.” Forty
years ago and less it was common to hear St. Paul’s
described as “ a heathen temple.” One rather
eminent author called the western towers of West¬
minster Abbey, Grecian. That, in the third year of

the twentieth century, the Palace of Whitehall or St.
Stephen’s, Walbrook, should be spoken of as in “a
national style ” would have seemed a thing incredible.
Yet it is impossible to pass by this entirely reasonable
expression of Mr. Tanner’s without recording the full
assent which it demands, and without remarking that
all through the introductory essay there are similar
postulates, often inferred though not repeated in words.
We find in short that the peculiar form of Palladian
architecture, which was brought to perfection by the
great English architects, was wholly different in its
results, when adapted to our insular requirements and
materials from what prevailed in France, Germany,
the Low Countries, and above all in Italy.

I have perhaps wandered from the tenour of Mr.
Tanner’s introduction, but his sentences are so full of
suggestion that it is difficult not to dwell upon one or
more of them. The principal subjects of his drawings
are the chapel and hall screens of the Charterhouse,
Hardwick Hall, some Elizabethan staircases and
Broughton Castle, all of the sixteenth century; Had-
don Hall, Ivnole, Bolsover, Guildford, and other
country examples. Plate XXXIX. brings us to a series
of specimens of Wren’s buildings in London, all the
woodwork left in St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, after the
recent destructive “ restoration ” — which, by the way,
Mr. Tanner does not mention — being represented in
measured drawings. Hampton Court occupies thiee
plates and Chelsea Hospital two more. The last of
the 50 plates contains a series of examples of seven¬
teenth and eighteenth century staircases. Among
these is one from a building which, till recently, was
little known, the old royal palace at Kew. It was
built in 1631, and is of red brick, with some curious
plaster work on the ceilings. The staircase is here figur¬
ed. Of all these pictures specialattention may be directed
to the vestry door of St. Lawrence, Jewry, of which,
besides a beautiful elevation, we have sections and
enlarged details of important features ; and to the
details, in three plates, of Thorpe Hall, which was
built in 1656 by John Webb, who carried out the
designs, and seems to have succeeded to the profes¬
sional practice of his wife’s cousin, Inigo Jones. Mr.
Tanner indulges in no perspective views; his book is
evidently intended for use by working designers, and
no doubt will prove a mine of suggestions to many
students. It proves once more, what too often we
forget, that examples of good art are to be had with¬
out wandering beyond the limits of our native shores.
Any attempt to introduce foreign forms, however fine
in themselves, must be made in wilful forgetfulness
of the numberless beautiful carvings which are scattered
broadcast through our own country. It is safe to say,
and I doubt not Mr. Tanner would bear me out in
asserting, that for each specimen to be found in these
admirable plates, at least ten more will occur to the
mind of any one acquainted with even a limited number
of the old houses and churches of England.

W. J. Loftie.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVIEW, M A V,

I903, VOLUME XIII.
NO. 78.

Photo: S. B. Bolas and Co.

EXETER CATHEDRAL. CORBEL AT SOUTH-EAST ANGLE OF CROSSING.

HEAD OF A LAY MASTER, POSSIBLY THE ARCHITECT.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built-II.*

III. — The Norman Church.

The history of Exeter Cathedral has been
less fully unravelled than has been the case with
many others. Dr. Oliver, in a valuable survey
made before Scott’s restoration, printed some in¬
teresting extracts from the Fabric Rolls, but his
reading of the building itself was not satisfactory.*
Canon P. Freeman’s careful examination of the
Fabric, taken together with his citation of the
documents, is the best authority we have. Pro¬
fessor E. Freeman, in his history of Exeter, pub¬
lished in 1886, quite ignored his namesake’s work,
published a dozen years before, and fell back on
Oliver; and still more recent accounts seem to
have been compiled by jumbling the two incom-
mensurables together. It is a pity, in regard to
Exeter, that we have not had the advantage of
such an analysis as Professor Willis made of the
development of Canterbury and Winchester.

* “ Lives of the Bishops of Exeter,” etc., etc

The great singularity of this cathedral is to be
found in the two massive Norman towers which
stand on either side of the body, or, if I may be
allowed to use the better F'rench word, of the
Vessel, at the half-length. These are said to have
been the work of Bishop Warelwast, 1107-36;!
but the fineness of the ashlar masonry and the
advanced detail would almost suggest work
wrought in the second half of the twelfth century.
The South Tower is entirely Norman, including the
four crowning turrets and their corbel tables (Fig. 3),
but the upper storey of the North Tower was built,
or rebuilt, in 1478-86, together with the pointed
leaded roof which is shown in King’s etching for
Dugdale. This leaded spire balanced a pyramidal
leaded roof about 55 feet high, which from the first
seems to have surmounted the South Tower.
Weatherings above the slope of this leaded spire
are, or were, to be found on the inner angles of the
four Norman turrets which stand well in over the
angles and allow the passage-ways to pass through
them and the spire to spring
from them. That from the first
these towers formed transepts
opening from the interior is
shown by the comparatively
large windows, one of which is
to be seen in the west face of
the North Tower, while a second
in the same, and two others in
the South Tower may be traced.

During the works carried out
by Scott, evidence was found
which shows that the walls of
the nave aisles are still in part
Norman for their entire length.
At successive points along the
aisles, especially on the south
side, signs are to be seen that
early pier-responds have been
cut away, and the base of one
of these was found in situ under
the present wall-seat. These
show that the piers of the nave
arcade were about 18 ft. 6 in.
apart from centre to centre.
(See Trans. Ex. Dioc. Archl.
Soc., N. Series, Vol. V., p. 120.)
The later pier-responds are evi¬
dently cut into an older wall,

* Continued from the March issue,
f A fifteenth-century chronicle quoted
by Freeman. The character of the
masonry of the North Tower has been
much falsified by that abomination wide
tuck pointing.

FIG. I. — NORTH TRANSEPTAL TOWER.
VOL. XIII. — N 2

1 68

How Exeter Cathedral was Built .

FIG. 2. — PLAN OF NORMAN CHURCH.

and even the early thirteenth-century door to
the cloister is also an insertion, while a part of
the west wall is almost certainly Norman work.

On the exterior the evidence is still clearer. On
the south it may be seen how the nave-walling
ranges with the masonry of the tower, and on the
north we have not only a Norman plinth in con¬
tinuation with that of the tower, but the lower
parts of the flat Norman buttresses of the aisle-
wall are preserved. These buttresses, which pro¬
ject 9 inches, were 4 feet wide, and the inter¬
spaces were about 14 feet 6 inches, which again
gives us 183- feet for the dimensions of the bays.

In the eastern limb of the church there is a
decided break in the work after the third bay from
the crossing. Up to this point the fourteenth-
century marble columns are 8 or 9 inches bigger
than those beyond, and differences may be seen
in the arches and other details. Further, on the
inside of the nave- walls, just above the wall-seat,
a chamfered plinth is to be seen which is plainly
part of the Norman work; a similar plinth may
be traced along the south aisle of choir for three
bays. An article written on the discoveries made
while Scott’s work was in progress, contributed to
the Saturday Review, says : “It is now known that
the Norman cathedral ended eastward in a triple
apse, since the foundations of one of the three
divisions were discovered in the north aisle, at the

end of the third bay from the west . The

western bays are, in fact, the old Norman walls
transformed.”* There were probably also small
apsidal chapels opening from the transept towers
where there are now square
chapels. These towers must
always have had altars from
whence their names of St.
Paul’s Tower (north) and

* See “ Exeter Cathedral and its
TURRETS, SOUTH TOWER. Restoration,” T. B. Worth, 1878.

St. John’s Tower (south) are derived. In the
Fabric Roll of the year 1280 we are told of altera¬
tions to “ St. John’s Tower,” and in 1285 there
are entries for similar work in “ St. Paul’s Tower,”
and for removing “ St. Paul’s altar.” In 1287
“ St. John’s altar” was also moved into the en¬
larged chapel opening from the tower (Freeman,
p. 73). We can even carry back the altar of St.
John a century further, for about 1235 Bishop
Bruere gave a portion of his garden “ juxta turrem
Set. Johannis” for a new Chapter House; and
Bishop John, who died in 1191, was buried in the
South Tower (evidently before the altar of his
name saint), “ where his tomb remains undis¬
turbed.”*

If we consider the original spacing of the bays of
the nave, of which, as we have seen, clear evidence
remains in place, we find that each tower with its
thick walls occupies the space of two bays. As the
old choir doubtless ran on westward of the towers,!
the great arcade would almost certainly have been
continuous, and it is probable that the towers at
first opened from the aisles with a pair of arches,

* Oliver : a document of 1409 speaks of this tomb of Bp. John
in St. John's Tower (in Lyttleton) : Leland says the same,
f Freeman.

FIG. 4. — SOUTH VIEW OF NORMAN CHURCH.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

and that the great alteration of c. 1280 consisted
in throwing these into one and heightening the
opening in each case.

We are not left without some indications of the
treatment of the church in detail. The remnants
of the pier-responds along the nave show that they
were accurately built with alternate courses of
bright red and white stone, the red stone bonding
on each side of the responds (of 2 feet wide) in an
exactly symmetrical manner. Here we have an¬
other instance of the counter-changing of two
varieties of stone, of which the Chapter House of
Worcester is such a remarkable example, and
which is also found at Chichester and other
places.

Even for the height indications might probably
be found on the inner faces of the towers as seen
in the roof-spaces of the heightened church.
(Since writing the above I find that Britton states
“ That the roof of the new church was raised con¬
siderably higher than that of the old one is evident
from the ancient Norman windows and other orna¬
mental work which may be seen on each tower
between the present vaulting and the roof.”)*

The windows of the church, we may suppose,
were generally like those which remain to us in
the towers. Altogether, the Norman church, with
its companion towers and leaded spires, standing
high above the nave and choir, furnishes a distinct
type in the history of English architecture.

IV. — The Lady Chapel and the New Work.

According to tradition, Bishop Marshall (1194-
1206) finished the church after the “ plat and
foundation ” of his predecessors. On the south side

* It would be very interesting to have careful drawings of
these parts.

I 69

of the nave (exterior) are Early English consecra¬
tion crosses, which may witness to the dedication
of the nave altars at this time.*

A Lady Chapel is mentioned in a document of
1237, which provides for certain masses in the
chapel of the Virgin. Oliver concluded that this
was the present Lady Chapel ; and Canon Free¬
man supposed further that a large eastern exten¬
sion was made to the church at the same early
date to connect the chapel with the old work, and
he assigns to Marshall the “longer choir (presby¬
tery), Lady Chapel, and six other chapels, north
porch,” &c. That is, as he follows it in detail,
the entire ground plan as it exists to-day. More¬
over, he says that the whole was vaulted only four
or five feet lower than at present ; and even the
towers were opened up “partially” with pointed
arches. Further, he supposes that Branscombe
(1257-80) made a first recasting of the Lady
Chapel and its two side chapels. Then came
Quivil (1280-91), who “designed the decorated
cathedral, and transformed the transepts, east
bay of nave, Lady and adjacent chapels, and
retro-choir.” That is, according to this theory,
leaving the Norman choir and Marshall’s sup¬
posed Presbytery as an island to be dealt with
by Bitton (1292-1307), Quivil transformed the
work round about, and made a specimen bay of
his new design in the nave.

The evidence submitted for the extensive work
assigned to Marshall ought to be overwhelming,
in face of the improbability that here, at Exeter,
we should get, at the end of the twelfth century,
the same fully-developed plan as at Salisbury, and
that such a great work was superseded on the same
lines from 1280 to 1310. Canon Freeman’s sug-

* The chapter house was built by Bruere (1224-44). The
large door in south wall of nave was probably also his work, and
inserted in the Norman wall to give access to the chapter house.

Chapel.

N. Porch

# <§>

# #

#0#

# #

1 1

€

The

Nave.

1 1

S'. Andrew's
Chapel.

53 S M. Mag-
21 dalen
Chapel.

S. John’s Tower.

FIG. 5. — EXETER CATHEDRAL. PLAN.

i;o

How Rxeter Cathedral was Built .

gested proofs from the structure all seem to me to
fail, and the allusion to a “ Chapel of the Blessed
Virgin,” in 1237, does not necessarily imply the
early existence of the present eastern Lady
Chapel. The strongest point in favour of such
a large eastern extension at an early time is
a deed of Branscombe's (1280) endowing St.
Gabriel’s Chapel, where he had chosen his place
of burial, “ in the chapel almost anew constructed
(de novo constructa) by the Chapel of St. Mary on
the south side,” which Freeman reads: “in the
almost reconstructed chapel.” Further evidence
seems to be required before we should accept the
Marshall theory as proved.*

The place assigned to Quivil by Freeman, is
that he “ designed ” the transformation of the
Norman and Transition church into a decorated
one. It is certain that work done in his day
(which included the finishing of the remodelling
of the transepts), deeply impressed his contempo¬
raries and successors. The witness of the stones
themselves, however, taken together with the
documents, is final as against the great claims to
initiation set up for Quivil. t

The existing Fabric Rolls show that an im¬
portant “work” was already in hand on Quivil's
accession ; the first of the rolls now in existence
being of Branscombe’s last year. We have no
knowledge of how many are lost, but it is certain
that a work and the rolls of accounts are comple¬
mentary to one another, and that the series of
rolls dates from Branscombe's time. Again, when
we find that already in 1280, in the latter half of
which year Branscombe died (July 22), the altera¬
tions to the transeptal towers were in full course,
we are driven to carry back the origin of even that
part of the work still earlier. Provision for such
a work could not have been made in the first two
or three months of Quivil’s rule.

The deed of Branscombe’s, before referred to,
shows that the Chapel of St. Gabriel, next the
Lady Chapel, was in July, 1280, nearly com¬
pleted. Again, Freeman himself, speaking of the
Chapels of St. James and St. Andrew opening
from the choir aisles, says, in an aside out of the
line of his main argument for Quivil, that “ Brans¬
combe, toward the end of his time, began to
transform these chapels into their present state —
just as he had, a little before, reconstructed the
Gabriel and Magdalen Chapels. For the very

* Freeman supposes that the buttresses of choir and Lady
Chapel, the corbel table of the latter, and the internal piers
between it and the side chapels, belong to Marshall's time : the
windows of Retro-choir he dates about 1230, and says they
resemble those of the Choir of Westminster, “ c. 1230 ”• — a mis¬
take in itself, as this should be c. 1250 — and the Exeter windows
show a considerable advance on Westminster.

f Fie appears to have made generous gifts to the Fabric, and
this may be the reason of his reputation.

first entry in our Fabric Rolls is for three win¬
dows for St. James' Chapel, September, 1279. It
is most probable that the St. Andrew’s Chapel
was in part transformed at the same time.”

I object here to the idea of a mere re-editing of
old chapels, but it is certain, in any case, that the
windows of the present south chapel were being
wrought nearly a year before Branscombe’s death,
and that St. Gabriel’s Chapel (St. Gabriel was
this bishop’s special patron) was at the same time
being built for the place of his tomb, and that the
Lady Chapel in its present situation by St.
Gabriel’s was spoken of as in being, although
possibly only rising from the ground, like its
flanking chapels.

If we now turn to the building itself we find
that the lower part of the Lad)’ Chapel, with its
companion chapels and the retro-choir, certainly
form part of one effort, and are of earlier date than
the rest of the work. In the sedilia of the Lady
Chapel we have the only example to be found in
the church of the trefoil foliage typical of Early
English, and it is associated with naturalistic leaf¬
age in a way that could only be found in work
wrought not later than the first years of Edward I.

If the five chapels of the eastern limb of the
church were well advanced by Branscombe before
his death, and even the remodelling of the tran¬
septs was in progress in the first months of Quivil's
reign, it is evident that the whole scheme for re¬
casting the eastern end must have been already
settled, and the “design” of the present church
must be credited to Branscombe and not to Quivil.*

Everything shows that Branscombe was a great
organiser and man of affairs, and his rule extended
to twenty-three years, as against Quivil’s eleven.
He instituted the Diocesan Register, which shows
that in 1259 no less than forty new or enlarged
churches were consecrated in his diocese. He
gave liberally to the building of Newnham Priory
and Bodmin Friary. He restored the establish¬
ment at Crediton, founded the College of Glaseney,
and built the bishop’s house at Clyst. He col¬
lected the constitutions of the cathedral body, and
instituted a celebration of St. Gabriel, with the
annual feeding of 500 poor. Even his own
magnificent effigy was probably wrought before
his death, and seems to speak of a dominant and
ambitious character.

It fell to Quivil not only to continue the work
in hand on his accession, and to carry the eastern
chapels on to completion, but we must allow him
the chief part in the next block of work under¬
taken, that is to say, the Presbytery immediately
west of the retro choir. The Presbytery and the
choir seem in the Fabric Rolls to be specially

* Even St. Edmund’s Chapel, at the north-west end of the
nave, seems to be as early as the other chapels.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

1 7 i

FIG. 6. — EXTERIOR OF THE CHOIR FROM THE NORTH.

Photo : S. B. Bolas and Co.

called the “ New Work ” ; and the Fabric Roll
for 1308 speaks of Quivil as first founder of the
new work ( primus fundator novi opcris). Eight
years after his death the Presbytery was ready for
its roof, and in two years more (1301) was com¬
pleted even to some of the glazing. If we con¬
sider the long preparation required for such a
work, including the great marble pillars from
Corfe, we are surely forced to assign to him the

chief glory of the Presbytery. In his Obit he is
said to have “enlarged the church in respect to
the new work therein,” and that he did it largely
at his own expense. He was buried in the centre
of the still hardly completed Lady Chapel, and
was celebrated first amongst its benefactors.
Freeman supposes that his enlargement of the
church by the new work refers merely to the re¬
modelling of the transept towers, but I think

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

FIG. 7. — EXTERIOR OF NAVE FROM THE SOUTH. INDICATIONS OF TEN COUPLED BAYS
OF THE CLOISTER MAY BE SEEN ON THE AISLE WALL.

Photo : S. B. Bolus and Co.

further consideration of the extracts he gives
shows conclusively that the Presbytery was his ;
and the phrase “first founder of the new work ”
is an argument against Marshall’s supposed prior
extension.

Bitton, who was to complete Quivil’s work,
succeeded in 1292. Under him in 1301 the vaults
of the eastern chapels were painted with gold,
silver, azure, and other colours.* In the same year
the glazing of the east gable of the new work was
in progress ( frontis novi operis) and this, as Free¬
man says, undoubtedly refers to the east window

* This seems to be the moment of the completion of the Lady
Chapel. Its beautiful reredos agrees with this date. '* The
centre niche is the only original one remaining ; the others on
either side are of somewhat similar design but have been badly
restored. They do not join the centre one as they must have
done originally, as the modern pinnacle is stuck against the
ancient one, and conceals a portion of the crockets and springing
of the small canopies. The whole of the centre niche has
been richly painted and gilded, but when the new work was
added the old was covered with yellow wash. The modern work
is, probably, a rough imitation of the original." — See Codings’
Gothic Ornaments , 1850.

of the Presbytery. In 1303 Thomas the Plumber
was at work super capellam B. M ., ct alibi super
novum opus. Here it plainly appears, as Lyttleton
has already remarked, that the New Work is dis¬
tinct from the Lady Chapel.

Again in 1303 we have an entry for setting the
glass in the upper gable, in the eight upper win¬
dows (clerestory), and the six aisle windows of the
New Work. The glazier was Master Walter le
Verrouer, and the moment speaks of the structural
completion of the Presbytery.

The second division of the new work, the choir
proper, seems to have followed the first, six or eight
years later (Fig. 6). In 1310 Master Walter le Ver¬
rouer was setting the glass, and in the previous
September the stalls were moved into their place
in the new choir. There is a marked difference
in the carving of these two sections; and in the
eastern, or first executed, bays, there was at
first no triforium, which was only cut in by Sta-
pledon in 1318 to range with that in the choir,
which had it from the first. Bitton died in 1307,

'73

How Rxeter Cathedral was Built.

and was buried in the midst of the new work
before the high altar. We may assign to him the
structure of the choir, which he must have seen
nearly completed before his death.

Examination of the fabric demonstrates, I think,
that the crossing and the first bay of the nave,
form part of one work with the choir, the carving
throughout having closer affinity with the nave
than with the Presbytery. The first bay of the
nave did not receive its glazing until 1317 and
1318; along with other windows about the cross¬
ing and in St. Edmund’s Chapel at the north-west
angle of the nave. This bay we may perhaps
assign to Stapledon (1308-1326) ; he, however,
was for the most part engaged in finishing and
furnishing the works of his predecessors. Much
of the glazing, the bishop’s throne, the sedilia,
the altar and high canopied reredos, and the pul¬
pit um, all were provided before his death. He was
buried to the left of the high altar, and Grandisson,
his successor, in 1328 dedicated the new work.

Grandisson, in his turn, took up what he called
“ the half-finished church,” but it seems almost
certain that the work of the nave must have been
well in hand in Stapledon’s last year when he

bought fifteen great poplar trees for scaffolds ; and
it appears from the rolls that this year was one of
the two points of maximum expenditure in the
course of the works. The other was in 1310 when
the choir was being completed. As early as 1326
work was going forward at the west front, and in
1332 William Canon reckoned with the Dean and
Chapter for marble found by himself and his
father for the fabric of the nave, and received at
this time a small balance of £j. 8s. He also bound
himself to do any repairs found necessary at the
time of fixing. This he fulfilled and received 54s.
(which had been disputed) in final settlement,
September gth, 1334. The details show, as Free¬
man has pointed out, that this reckoning included
all the marble work of the nave except the east
bay, which had been done before, and comprised
the triforium as well as the great columns. The
design and origin of the new nave must, it seems
from this, be pushed back into Stapledon’s time.
In 1338 Grandisson wrote an order for twelve oaks,
and these, no doubt, were for the roof, as Free¬
man supposes.

In 1341 £190 was spent ; in 1342 £144. but
after this there is a sudden drop to an average of

FIG. 8. — INTERIOR OF THE NAVE FROM THE CLERESTORY.

Photo : S. B. Bolas and Co.

i74

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

south A r s e r.

FIG. 9. — RESTORATION OF NORTH WALK OF CLOISTER.

about £40 as the work of the nave drew toward
a close. There was not, I suppose, any cessation
in the progress of the works from the time when
Branscombe began at the east end, let us say
about 1270. As soon as the masons were taken
oft one part they were probably set about the
next, in a clearly defined general scheme. Thus
the beginning of the nave would date from
the completion of the crossing and first bay. The
average annual expenditure seems to have been
about £ 200 . For seventy-five years this would
amount to £15,000, and this sum, about £300,000
of our money, we may put as the cost of Exeter
Cathedral. Amongst the last items of expense
was the bringing of water to the close, and the
erection of St. Peter’s fountain in 1346-48. This
was a conduit near the N.\V. angle of the nave ;
it is shown on the old coloured plot of the close.
Even a wall which enclosed a yard on the N. side
of the nave, now destroyed, belonged, I suppose,
to this time ; it had a fine coping, and the yard
probably formed the plumbery.

In I353 a new work was begun “ in front of the
great cross,” the expenses of which were alto¬
gether £46 — this, Freeman supposes, is the
Minstrels’ Gallery.*

The north walk of the cloister attached to the
nave appears to have been built along with the
nave buttresses which form an integral part of it.
Marble for it is mentioned in Canon’s bill for 1332.

The form of this north walk can be easily
conjectured from the fragments which remain, al¬
though it is to be hoped that no one will want to
“ restore ” it (Fig. 9). The trivial game of resto¬
ration is surely now played out. This cloister
formed a series of alcoves between the buttresses.
From fragments which were found in 1817, it
appears that the bosses, vaulting, and tracery had
been richly gilt and painted, and that there had

* For the fine collection of musical instruments figured here
see Carl Engel’s “ Musical Instruments.” They comprise the
Ciffern, Bagpipe, Clarion, Rebec, Psaltery, Syrinx, Sackbut,
Regals, Gittern, Shalm, Timbrel, Cymbals.

been large windows between the
buttresses.* A south walk, and
probably one to the west, were
added about 1370-80; the windows
were glazed. There is some doubt
as to an east walk, and in the
“ scientific restoration ” now begun
of this thing, for the previous exist¬
ence of which there is no proof, a
great buttress of the chapter house
has been cut away to make room
for it. The other, too, will vanish,

I suppose, when money is forth¬
coming for this whim. The expen¬
diture shown in the fabric accounts
rises again at the building of this cloister, and its
erection seems to have formed a separate work
( opus claustrale). The accounts rise again in 1390,
the year when the new east window was inserted.

On one other last point I have to differ from
Freeman’s valuable book, which sets out its facts
so accurately that they can often be used against
his conclusions. Fie assigns to Bishop Oldham
(1504-19) not only the three late chantries, but
also the graceful screens to the three eastern
chapels; now those before the chapels of St.
Gabriel and St. M. Magdalen, bear illuminated
on the jambs of their doorways, faded but certain,
the Arms of Stafford (1395-1419) — -or, a chevron
gules, on a bordure azure eight mitres or. These
screens were probably erected in 1410 when
Stafford invited subscriptions tor the fabric. The
wood doors in these screens are very well painted
in an early style, those of the north chapel with
flourishes of white on a vermilion ground, and
those to the chapel of St. Gabriel with a beau¬
tiful Annunciation, Gabriel bearing a scroll in¬
scribed Avc Maria plena gratia.

V. — The Architects and other Artists.

As we have seen, Exeter Cathedral, as it stands
to-day in its seeming unity and exquisite “ propor¬
tions,” was no exercise in original design, but is
the result of recasting a pre-existing church by
making an extension eastward, retaining the old
towers and rebuilding the nave on the old lines.
According to our point of view such a work is
either a compromise and a cobble, or a thing super¬
personal, a unity whose day was three centuries.

This process of building was conducted by a series
of head-masons, carpenters, plumbers, and glaziers,
who were engaged and “ sworn ” as occasion re¬
quired, to carry on the work at fixed wages. We
have in the Fabric Rolls of Exeter a series of
accounts for the building done from 1279 to 1440.
There are upwards of a hundred tight little rolls

* See Britton.

How Exeter Cathedral zuas Built.

i 75

of parchment, about nine inches wide and two to
five yards long. I have looked over one or two of
these, not, it is true, at sufficient leisure to add to
what has been extracted by Oliver and Freeman,
but a glance shows the precision with which the
names and wages of the masons and other artists
were set out week by week. And it is certain
that a day or two of labour would make plain
that a great deal of the work could be assigned to
the individual workman who wrought it. These
Rolls, as a series, are, however, incomplete,
especially it would seem at the beginning.

In the practice of Mediaeval building, as each
considerable effort was made, what was called a
“ New Work ” was constituted, together with a
special fund and responsible heads, who were
called “ keepers of the work.” The Rolls show
that here at Exeter, exactly as at Westminster
Abbey, building was carried on under the joint
charge of a master of accounts and a master of
masonry.* Dr. Oliver has printed in full a roll for
1299, an important moment when the beautiful
work of the Presbytery was nearing its comple¬
tion. In it the wages of each man is set out for
every week in the year ; it is headed “ Compotus
Domini Roberti de Asperton et Magistri Rogeri
Cementarii, custodum novi operis.” Nine or ten
other masons are mentioned besides Master Roger ;
five received 2 s. 2 d. a week, the others less.
Richard de la Streme, evidently the foreman,
heads the list with 2 s. 3d. At the end of every
quarter is entered, “ In Stipendio Magistri Rogeri
Cementarii, pro termino, 30s. Efe Domini Roberti
de Asperton, 12s. 6 d." The latter in one place is
called Vicar, so that we may know that he was
one of the clergy. Cementarius is, of course,
“ Mason ” ; the latter word came more into use
in the fourteenth century. The wages of Archi¬
tect Roger were thus just under 2 s. 6 d. a week.
Master Walter, the carpenter, at the same time,
received 2 s. 3d. a week. This Master Walter
appears together with a sudden addition to the
staff of carpenters in the third quarter of this
year, 1299, and his advent probably marks the
moment of beginning the roofs of the Presbytery.
Four years later we hear of three shillings paid to
Roger, the mason, for going to Corfe to buy
stones. We may almost certainly assign to him
the vault of the Lady Chapel, the upper part of
the Presbytery, and the beginning of the choir.
Possibly he was architect of the Presbytery from
the first. William de Montacute was working as
a sculptor at this time. Freeman says that he
executed carved doors for the choir in 1302, and
brackets and bosses in 1313. But with our usual

* See my account of the Westminster Architects, Journal of
the R.I.B.A., June 1891.

English eagerness to give away English art, he
adds that William de Montacute was a French¬
man. Now Montacute is close to the Ham Hill
Quarries only about thirty miles away in Somerset¬
shire. We may associate him more exactly with
the bosses of the high vault which were wrought
1303-4 1 they cost 5 s. each.* Under the Corbel
at the S.E. angle of the crossing is carved the
head of a layman in a master’s
cap. It is very fine and cha¬
racteristic and may have been
intended for the mason or
sculptor. See Frontispiece.

In 1286, Richard de Malmes¬
bury was employed in painting,
at 2 s. lid. per week. In 1301,
the vaulting of the eastern
chapels was painted with
“ gold, silver, azure, and other
colours.” (The stars and silver
moons on blue still remain,
although much restored.) In
1303, Thomas Plumber was
paid for covering the chapel of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, and other parts on the new
work, and Master Walter le Verrouer was
engaged in glazing the Presbytery. He was
still busy in 1310, when he was receiving 3s. a
week for himself and two boys in setting the glass.!
Six lights of his great east window still remain
to us, re-inserted amongst the later glass.

* In 1299, Henry Manger, mercator of Kaim (Caen), was paid
for stone. In 1304, we hear of Portlonde stone.

f The calling in of little masters with their apprentices was
general. In 1299, we find a carpenter cum garcione suo, four days,
twenty pence. We may note also here, as a custom of the
carpenters’ trade, that they had gloves provided for raising
timber.

How Exeter Cathedral was Built.

i 76

In 1309, William Canon was paid “ for marble
from Corfe for the columns.” The Canons were
the great Purbeck marble contractors of the time.
It is interesting to note how the mouldings of the
columns at Exeter are similar to the Purbeck
work of Winchester Presbytery and Wells Chapter
House (see Fig. 12). The “ Corfe marblers ” evi¬
dently supplied their own mouldings. In this same
year Master John de Glaston (carpenter or junctor?)
moved the stalls to their situation in the new choir.
The superb bishop’s throne of oak is the work of
Robert de Galmeston, who in 1316 received £'4
for making it by piece-work (ad tascam) ; Nicholas
Pictor receiving ns. for imaginibus ; the oak had
been bought in 1312 for £6 T2s. 8 d. John, the
goldsmith, in 1319, was paid for work in silver for
the altar. In 1317, the choir screen, called “la
pulpytte,” was begun. William Canon wrought
the marble-work, and the Dean and Chapter gave
him £4 “ of their courtesy,” so pleased were
they with the result.

Amongst the sums paid for the Pulpitum, one is
mentioned in 1324 to an Imaginator of London,
imaginibus talliand .” The London image-
makers were doubtless the finest school of sculp¬
tors in the country.

As we have seen, Bishop Stapledon must have
begun the works for the nave before his death.
The head mason at this time, 1325-6 (name not
printed by Oliver), received 33s. 4 d. a quarter ;
and the clerk, his co-keeper, 12s. 6 d. as before.
This mason we may probably look on as first
architect of the nave, and an hour’s search in the
Roll of this year would almost assuredly give us
his name. We are not left in any doubt, how¬
ever, as to who was Grandisson’s architect a dozen
years later when (1338) the Bishop wrote to his
bailiff at Chudieigh to deliver “au gardeyne de
meisme loeur xii. cheynes (twelve oaks for the
work) convenables pour la dite eglise .
selon la visement Sir Thomas de Doulcote, clerk,
et Maistre Thomas le Maceoun ” (by the advice
of our clerk and of Master Thomas the mason).
This is the moment when the masonry of the
nave was nearing completion. At this time we
still have exactly the same dual control as was
the wont forty years before. By means of this
fact we can probably explain an entry of six years
earlier ; this is the memorandum mentioned be¬
fore, in which William, Canon of Corfe then
(January, 1332) reckoned for marble supplied by
his father and himself for the nave (including
equal to eleven and a half great columns at £10 10s.
each, etc.), whereof the said William received
payment from “Dominis John Shireford et Petro
de Castro,” Wardens of the said church, by the
hands of the said Master Petro de Castro.

The Cathedral was no sooner finished than an

amendment was made at the east end. According
to Oliver, Henry de Blakeburn, a canon, gave a
hundred marks for a new east window in 1389.
In the Fabric Roll for this year is an entry for a
skin of parchment ad pmgendum magnam fenestram.
In 1391 an agreement was made with Robert
Lyen, the glazier of the church (and sworn to that
office with a yearly salary of 26 s. 8 d.), whereby he
was to receive twenty pence for each foot of new
glass ; and for refitting the old glass (Master
Walter’s) he was to receive 3s. qd. a week, and
his men 2 s. ; all new glass being supplied by
the Chapter. In 1396 William Houndling and
William Gervys are mentioned — the former had a
salary of 26s. 8 d., I suppose, as master mason, as
that was now the rate for mastership; and in him
we may have the architect of the east window
just inserted. Oliver, speaking generally, says,
“ The headmason, or overseer of the works had
an additional salary of 26s. 8 d.” In 1412 John
I ilney, mason, was called in to inspect the ruinous
chapter house, and work on it was undertaken
soon after. Probably the upper storey is his work.
John Harry, “ freemason,” was cathedral mason
in 1424, at a yearly fee of 26s. 8 d., over and above
his wages. In 1437 he began the new vestry for
the Lady Chapel. At the same time John Budd,
painter of Exeter, was working in the Cathedral,
he painted the clock in 1424, and two years later
he repainted “Old St. Peter,” a figure which
stood at the choir gate.

In 1429 Henry Glazier of Exon received pay¬
ment for glazing a new window in the western
tower. Many entries in the rolls use the word
“tower” in a way difficult to be understood, but
approximating to our “ bay.” Probably this pay¬
ment dates the clerestory windows in the west
bay where the work is clearly late.

So do these old rolls of accounts reveal to us
the methods used and the persons engaged in the
simple and romantic craft of building as practised
in the middle age. We might define “ Gothic ” in
rive words, as the Art of many Little Masters, the
“ Renaissance ” as the Art of a few Great Masters.

In conclusion, I wish, as a student and lover
of Exeter Cathedral, to express a hope that the
glass in the west window will not be sacrificed
for newer fashions of stained glass. It is un¬
obtrusive— indeed, pleasant — and is already 150
years old. It is most interesting historically.
Winston supposed that the ruby glass used in it
was the last made in England before the process
was rediscovered in France. Its removal and the
insertion of the most up-to-date plaything must
injure the old stonework. As a Devonshire man
I protest against the extravagance of violently
destroying this window.

W. R. Lethaby.

Architectural Education.

A Review and Discussion. — I.

The Englishman’s belief in happy-go-lucky
methods has lately received some rude shocks in
results that were neither happy nor lucky. It is
established now that battles may be lost on the
playing-fields of our public schools, and that even
Waterloo was not won there; that to manoeuvre
for a “muddle” or a “mess” in the sure and
certain hope of genius punctually declaring itself
to clear it up is dangerous when an empire de¬
pends upon the wager, and that a systematic
neglect of system is only one kind of pedantry.
The suggested remedy of entrusting our affairs to
“ business-men ” can hardly be listened to with a
grave face when we find those same business-men
confessing that they are out-paced in energy and
outwitted in combination by the foreigner they
were accustomed to despise. The average “ busi¬
ness man ” is as hollow a person as the average
“ artist.” It seems admitted on all hands that it
may be desirable to devote to military and com¬
mercial affairs something of the study, training,
and keenness that we give at present to sport.
Energy and independence we have in abundance,
but we are too fond of living from hand to mouth,
too disdainful of systematic professional schooling.

If South Africa, Germany, and America have
been teaching us these lessons in public and com¬
mercial affairs, the chaotic state of architectural
design sharpens the question whether here, too,
the conditions of education are not partly to
blame. Art is not, to the same extent as war or
business, a pursuit in which great numbers of the
average man must and can be drilled to perform
subordinate and half-mechanical services, and to
a greater extent than these it depends on original
combining and creative power. But this power,
when it exists, calls for drilling in two respects.
Architecture is science made art ; a knowledge of
the principles of construction is a first necessity of
the architect, and modern architects ought to be
ashamed of the fact that “ engineer ” and “ archi¬
tect ” seldom mean the same person. But the
decorative as well as the constructive sense calls
for training. “ Originality ” in design is the
merest weed, and must be grafted on the old stocks
and pruned if any fruit is to come of it. Genius
itself must learn its use and the conduct of its
forces from a study of the past.

In England we maintain for architects relics of

a mediaeval system of training stripped of its
severe sanctions. No one is forced to be a pren¬
tice before he calls himself an architect, and the
amount of practical training a prentice obtains
depends too much on the chances of his own
industry, and his teacher’s conscience or leisure.
Yet there are advantages in this early practical
office-training that it would be rash to imperil
by hasty action. For theoretical and historical
training the student must turn to one or more
of those schools that have sprung up to sup¬
plement the traditional system. But unless the
prentice system is relaxed, this study has to be
carried on in the evenings, after hours. On the
one side we have the Academy courses, which
are practically confined to draughtsmanship;
on the other hand, the efforts of the Archi¬
tectural Association to form a school prepara¬
tory to, or concurrent with, apprenticeship.
There are other courses at Kensington and at
University and King’s Colleges. Into the merits
of all these fragments of a system it is not the
business of this preliminary notice to enter. But
it may be said that they do not constitute at
present a complete and authoritative technical
school of architecture as foreigners understand the
word. The foreigners may not have said the
last word of wisdom on the subject, but it is
hoped that a review of the existing schools in
England, and of the more systematic education of
France, Germany, and America may lead to a
useful discussion of the problem how far such a
school or set of schools is possible and desirable in
England, and of the relation this systematic edu¬
cation ought to bear to the office training. The
moment seems to be ripe for the reorganising
of teaching in all its branches; the work of
the new University of London in co-ordinating
individual schools is a hopeful beginning, and
the clearing up of ideas and concentration of
forces on the part of architects might lead to
something more satisfactory than the present
state of things. With a view to this we shall
give accounts as full and authoritative as pos¬
sible of the existing systems in different coun¬
tries, and then invite discussion based upon this
Blue-book survey. We begin with the country
that has a very complete apparatus if it has not
an art proportionate to its educational system.

A rch itectu ral R due a tio n .

■73

GERMANY (WITH AUSTRIA AND
SWITZERLAND).

By T. Bailey Saunders.

When Secretary to the Commission which recon¬
stituted the University of London as a teaching
body, it fell to me, a few years ago, to examine the
relation between technical education and Univer¬
sity studies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,
and I thus had an opportunity, which I have since
endeavoured to improve, of seeing what has been
done in those countries to provide the best pos¬
sible training for every kind of professional career.
If a description of what has been done for the
training of architects in particular be of any value
or interest at the present moment to the readers
of this Review, I gladly do my best to give it.

Let me begin with Berlin. There is some ad¬
vantage in doing so, not only because the famous
Technical High School in the suburb of Charlot-
tenburg is the largest and, on any general esti¬
mate, must surely be accounted the best in
Europe, but also because similar schools else¬
where, even if they do not accept it as their
exemplar in all the details of technical educa¬
tion, cannot escape its influence. On its size — ■
the main building has a frontage of some 7 50 ft.
and a depth of some 295 ft. — on the complete¬
ness of its equipment, on the number of its halls
and lecture-rooms, laboratories and museums, or
on the excellence of its library, there is no need to
dwell, unless for the sake of mentioning that in
this respect as ample provision is made for the
study of architecture as for the study of any other
subject pursued within its walls. For architec¬
ture is there regarded as a subject of education
quite as definite and important, and demanding
just as systematic a treatment, as any other kind
of special knowledge. Equally with civil engineer¬
ing, mechanical engineering, naval architecture
and naval engineering, chemistry and mining, and
general science, it takes full rank as one of the six
departments into which the school is divided, and
it is actually the first of them. Attached to this
department is a fine museum comprising several
large rooms or galleries, in which models, draw¬
ings, paintings and various objects of art are
displayed. The great attention given to architec¬
ture among the technical subjects pursued in the
school seems to me, at least, to be a matter of the
highest significance, because, although the opinion
that it is not technical in at all the same sense in
which the other subjects are so, and ought not to
be studied under the same roof with them, is not
unknown in Germany any more than in Great
Britain, the opinion is one which finds little
favour with the authorities at Berlin. The fact,
too, that, according to the latest statistics, out of

4,811 students in the school during the last winter
term 843 were found in this department, is fairly
conclusive evidence that the authorities are not
alone in their view, d he curriculum laid down pro¬
vides for both the scientific and the artistic aspects
of architectural study, and in this as in other sub¬
jects it is very important to remember that the
aim of the school is to furnish, not practical ex¬
perience of actual work, but instruction in the
practical application of science.

The mention of students in such large numbers
may suggest a question as to their social position
and previous training; and without some informa¬
tion on these points no one, it may be said, can
form any correct idea of the part which the Tech¬
nical High School at Berlin, or any other institu¬
tion of the like kind, plays in the educational life
of Germany. I hasten to state, therefore, that
the students are drawn, to a far larger extent than
has prevailed hitherto in England or in France,
from all classes ; and that in common with the
students at most of the German Universities they
are drawn in the main from the families of military
or naval officers, professional men, the clergy, civil
servants, schoolmasters and teachers of all kinds,
bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, and farmers.
The lowest age at which they can enter is seven¬
teen, but in consequence of the thorough character
of the previous training demanded few enter before
the age of eighteen, and in many cases, owing to
the exigencies of military service, much later still.
The utmost care is taken in the department of
architecture as in other departments that those
only shall be admitted who are likely to make the
best use of the instruction provided. To matricu¬
late and obtain all the advantages of full student¬
ship, a candidate must inter alia have passed the
Abiturienten or leaving examination in a German
classical or semi-classical or upper modern school,
or have passed some other examination which, in
the opinion of the Prussian Ministry of Education,
is of a similar standard. In this connection it is
interesting to know that, according to a recent
computation, onlv 7 per cent, of the students in
all the Prussian Technical High Schools came
from secondary schools of a lower rank than
those mentioned. When I was last in Berlin one
of the professors told me, indeed, that half of
those attending lectures in Charlottenburg came
from classical schools. In addition, however, to
the matriculated students there are others called
Hospitanten, who may be men unable to satisfy
these conditions of entrance, which are, in fact,
severer than obtain at any English University,
and who nevertheless may desire to attend some
of the lectures. For them, or for others unwill¬
ing to follow a complete course of study, different
arrangements are made ; but in every case a

A rchitectural Education.

179

sufficient equipment in the way of previous know¬
ledge is required. Of the 843 students in the
department of architecture during the term cited
350 were Hospitanten — a number, be it said, out of
all proportion large in comparison with those in
other departments.

The instruction provided is on an elaborate
scale, and as in the Universities so here, too, it is
highly specialised. In the department of archi¬
tecture alone there are no less than eight regular
professors, ten assistant professors, and sixteen
Privatdocenten or licensed lecturers and readers —
in all thirty-four members of the teaching staff,
who are directly engaged in giving instruction in
one or another of the scientific or artistic aspects
of this one subject. For sciences preliminary or
accessory to the subject, such as mathematics,
geology, and hygiene, the lectures and classes of
nineteen professors and readers in other depart¬
ments are available ; so that a pupil in architec¬
ture, if he takes the full curriculum, can make his
choice among fifty-three teachers. This choice
is, in theory at least, a free one. The regulations
expressly lay down that the student may deter¬
mine for himself which lectures and what courses
of practical work he will attend, thereby ensuring
him that Lernfreiheit or academic freedom which
is the distinguishing feature and one of the most
valued advantages of German university life. He
can, if he so wishes, obtain a certificate that he
has attended such and such lectures, or passed
such and such terminal examinations, should he
desire to submit himself to this test ; but the
whole apparatus of compulsory curriculum, com¬
pulsory examinations during the period of study,
terminal reports, and so on, which are character¬

istic of the English system, is not to be found at
Berlin except in the case of scholars and exhibi¬
tioners. Nevertheless, for the guidance of the
students, certain courses of study are recom¬
mended, and are, in fact, generally followed,
although sometimes, it is true, a student will
strike out a line of his own. The head of each
department, moreover, is always ready to give
advice to such students as ask for it, and to assist
them in the choice of the lectures and practical
work most suited to their individual aims. But
unless this Lernfreiheit is borne in mind the tables
which I now propose to give, showing what lines
the instruction in architecture follows, may easily
be misunderstood as pointing to a compulsion
which does not exist.

The full course in architecture occupies four
academic years, and each year is divided into a
winter term beginning in October, and a summer
term beginning in April. Each set of lectures is
paid for separately, and, apart from the matricu¬
lation fee of £ 1 ios., the average annual cost to
the student in fees works out at from £15 to £20.
Without an ample subvention from the State —
and the Prussian State is not only ready to spend
money on education, but also knows how to spend
it advantageously — the fees received would ob¬
viously not cover the expenses involved. Some¬
times two or more lectures on the same subject,
or lectures and classes for practical work, may be
advertised for the same hour ; but owing to the
number of the teachers and the extent to which
specialisation is carried, it is an arrangement
under which the students gain rather than suffer.
The instruction over the whole course of four
years is arranged as follows* : —

The Architectural Curriculum in Berlin.

FIRST YEAR.

Winter Term.

Monday.

Tuesday.

W ednesday .

Thursday.

Friday.

Saturday.

(1) Descriptive Geo-

(1) E xperimental

(1) Statics of Con-

(1) Experimental

(1) Figure Drawing

(1) Descriptive Geo-

metry.

Chemistry.

struction (includ-

Chemistry.

from Models (prac-

metry.

(2) Ornamental Mo-

(2) Figure Modelling

ing Mathematical

(2) Drawing of Orna-

tical classes).

(2) Landscape Draw-

delling (practical

(practical).

principles).

ments (practical).

(2) Experimental

ing in ink, pencil.

classes).

(3) Experimental

(2) Surveys a nd Mea-

(3) Surveys and Mea-

Physics.

carbon, and water

(3) Ancient Art.

Physics.

(4) Theory of Con-
s truction (two
practical classes).

surements.

(3) Ancient Architec¬
ture (practical stu¬
dies in details).

surements.

(4) Surveys and Mea¬
surements (practi¬
cal classes).

(3) History of Art
(Ancient, Early,
Christian, Mediae¬
val, and Early Re¬
naissance in Italy) .

(4) Theory of Con¬
struction (two lec¬
tures).

colours (practical
classes).

(3) Geometry (practi¬
cal classes).

Summer Term.

(1) and (2) as in the

(2) and (4) as in the

As in the winter

(2), (3), and (4) as in

(1) and (4) as in the

(1), (2), and (3) as in

winter term.

(3) Early Christian
and Italian Mediae¬
val Art.

winter term.

term.

the winter term.

winter term.

(3) History of Art
(Italian Renais¬
sance and Baro¬
que).

the winter term.

(4) Surveys and Mea¬
surements (practi¬
cal classes in the
field).

* These and the further particulars given in this article are in each case taken from the current prospectus.

Architectural Education.

i 80

SECOND YEAR.
Winter Term.

Monday.

(1) Ornamental Mo¬
delling.

(2) Ditto (practical
classes) -

(3) Internal Construc¬
tion (practical
classes)

(4) Theory of Con¬
struction (higher
course).

(5) Ancient Art.

(2), (3), and (4) as in
the winter term.

(5) Building materials.

(6) Early Christian
and Italian Mediae¬
val Art.

T uesday.

(1) Simple Buildings
(practical classes).

(2) Figure Modelling
(practical classes).

(3) Simple Buildings
(lecture).

(4) Decoration and
F urniture( Ancient,
Mediaevaland Ear¬
ly Renaissance).

(5) Contracts and
Estimates.

(1), (2), and (3) as in
the winter term.

(4) Decoration and
Furniture (Renais¬
sance to the end of
the 18th century).

Wednesday.

(1) Working Draw¬
ings from given
Sketches (prac¬
tical classes.)

(2) Ditto (lecture).

(3) History of the
Evolution of Orna¬
ment

(4) Theory of Con¬
struction (higher
course).

Summer

(1), (2), (3), and (4)
as in the winter
term.

(5) General Geology.

(6) Practical work in
Geology.

(7) Architectural
Technology.

Thursday.

(1) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(2) Drawing of Orna¬
ments (practical
classes).

(3) General Mineral¬
ogy.

Term.

(1) and (2) as in the
winter term.

Friday.

(1) Figure Drawing
from Models.

(2) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

J (3) Statics of Con¬
struction (higher
course).

\ (4) Ditto (practical
classes).

(5) History of Art
(from ancient times
to the early Re¬
naissance).

(6) Fo u nd a t i on s,
bridge - building,
retaining walls,
planking and

1 strutting.

(1) as in the winter
term.

(2) History of Roman
Architecture.

(3) History of Art
(Italian Renais¬
sance and Rococo).

(4) Principles of rail¬
way, steel, and hy¬
draulic construc¬
tion.

Saturday.

(1) Plans and Draw¬
ings (practical clas¬
ses).

(2) Ancient Architec¬
ture (practical stu¬
dies).

(3) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(4) Landscape Draw¬
ing in ink, etc.
(practical classes).

(5) Foundations,
joists, etc.

(1) History of Roman
Architecture.

(2) and (4) as in the
winter term.

(3) General Geology.

(5) Principles of rail¬
way, steel, and hy¬
draulic construc¬
tion.

As the course progresses it will be noticed that the lectures and practical classes become more
numerous and take on a still more specialised character.

THIRD YEAR.

Winter Term.

Monday.

(x) Building in wood. J

(2) Drawing of Orna¬
ment in Particular
Methods and Or- J
namental Studies
(practical classes).

(3) Mediaeval Archi¬
tecture. Designs in '
stone, brick, and
wood (practical
classes).

(4) Renaissance Arch¬
itecture. Designs
(practical clashes), j

(5) Select species of
Ornament.

(6) Ventilation and
Heating.

(7) Theory of Con- !
struction (higher
practical course).

(1). (2). (3). (4). (5).
and (7) as in the
winter term.

Tuesday.

(1) Theory of form
and construction in
Mediaeval Archi¬
tecture.

(2) Insurance against
accident. Indus¬
trial Hygiene
(technical part).

(3) Drawing. Archi¬
tectural Perspec¬
tive (practical
classes).

(4) The chief kinds
of public and pri¬
vate buildings.
The laying out of
towns.

(5) Practical classes
in sketching de¬
signs.

(6) Ventilation and
Heating.

(1) , (3), (4), and (5)
as in the winter
term

(2) Industrial Hy¬
giene (social,
chemical, and phy¬
siological part).

Wednesday.

(1) Gothic Architec¬
ture.

(2) Mediaeval Archi¬
tecture. Designs
in stone, brick, and
wood (practical j
classes).

(3) Renaissance
Architecture. De¬
signs (practical
classes).

(4) History of the |
Evolution of the
leading forms of
Ornament.

(5) Figure sketching
on specified lines.

(6) Do. (practical
classes).

(7) Figure drawing |
from the life (prac¬
tical classes).

(8) Theory of Con- j
struction (higher
course).

Summer

As in the winter
term.

Thursday.

(1) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(2) Building in brick.

(3) Building plans in
detail (practical
classes).

(4) Plans and details
in Mediaeval forms
with special refer¬
ence to brickwork
(practical classes).

(5) P r i n c i p 1 e s of
building in iron.

(6) Do. (practical
classes).

Term.

(1) History of Roman
Architecture

(3). (4). (5). and (6)
as in the winter
term.

Friday.

(1) Building plans on
specified lines
(practical classes).

(2) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(3) Building in brick.

(4) Building plans in
detail.

(5) Plans and details
in Mediaeval forms
with special refer¬
ence to brickwork
(practical classes).

(6) Statics of con¬
struct, on (third
course).

(7) Do. (practical
classes).

(8) Modelling and
drawing from na¬
ture (practical
classes).

(2) History of Roman
Architecture
(1). (4). (5). (6), (7).
and (8) as in the
winter term.

Saturday.

(1) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(2) Insurance against
accident. Industrial
Hygiene.

(3) Modelling and
drawing from na¬
ture (practical
classes).

(4) Do. (lecture).

(5) Rococo styles
(general history of
style, decoration,
and industrial art).

(1) History of Roman
Architecture.

(2) History of styles
in the 19th century.

(3) and (4), as in the
winter term.

(5) Industrial Hy¬
giene.

A rc kite chiral Education.

i 8 i

FOURTH YEAR.
Winter Term.

Monday.

(1) Building in wood.

(2) Mediaeval Archi¬
tecture in stone,
brick, and wood
(practical classes)

(3) Renaissance
Architecture. Re¬
signs (practical
classes).

(4) Select species of
Ornament.

(5) Ventilation and
Heating.

(1), (2), (3), and (4) as
in the winter term.

Tuesday.

(1) Theory of form
and construction
in Mediaeval
Architecture.

(2) Decoration in
colour (practical
classes)

(3) The chief kinds
of public and pri¬
vate buildings.
The laying out of
towns.

(4) Practical classes
on sketching de¬
signs.

(5) Ventilation and
Heat ng (practical
classes).

(1), (2), (3), and (4) as
in the winter term.

Wednesday.

(1) Gothic Architec¬
ture

(2) Ornamental De¬
signs. Extempore
sketches (prac.ical
classes).

(3) Mediaeval Archi¬
tecture in stone,
brick, and wood
(practical classes)

(4) Figure sketching
on specified lines.

(5) Do. (practical
classes).

(6) Figure drawing
from the life (prac¬
tical classes).

Somme

As in the winter
term.

Thursday.

(1) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece

(2) Building in brick

(3) Building plans in
detail (practical
classes)

(4) Plans and details
in Mediaeval forms
with special refer¬
ence to brickwork
(practical classes)

Term.

(1) History of Roman
Architecture.

(3) and (4) as in the
winter term.

Friday.

(1) Building sketches
on given lines
(practical classes)

(2) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(3) Building in brick.

(4) Plans and details
in Mediaeval forms
with special refer¬
ence to brickwork
(practical classes).

(5) Building plans in
detail (practical
classes).

(6) Modelling and
drawing from na¬
ture (practical
classes) .

(7) Machinery.

Saturday.

(1) History of Archi¬
tecture in Western
Asia and Greece.

(2) Machinery (prac¬
tical classes)

(3) Modelling and
drawing from na¬
ture.

(4) Do. (practical
classes).

(5) Kococo (general
history of style,
decoration and in¬
dustrial art).

(1) , (4). (5). and (6) as
in the winter term.

(2) Historyof Roman
Architecture.

(1) Historyof Roman
Architecture

(2) Machinery (lec¬
tures).

(6) Do (practical
classes).

(3) , (4), and (5) as in
the winter term.

Such is the course of study in architecture pro¬
vided at Berlin. By a recent ordinance of the
Prussian Ministry of Education, those who take it
are under certain conditions enabled to enter for
examinations which, if passed, confer a diploma in
the subject. It must, however, be clearly under¬
stood that entry for such examinations is volun¬
tary, and that there is nothing to prevent anyone
from engaging in private practice as an architect
who does not take out a diploma or has not
undergone the technical training provided. There
are eminent architects in Germany, as there are
in England, who consider that too much impor¬
tance may easily be attached to technical training,
and that theorists may come to regard it as usurp¬
ing the place which ought to be taken by artistic
insight and practical knowledge. The extreme
form of this opinion is that architecture ought to
be excluded from the Technical High School, on
the ground that its chief factors are of the nature of
Art, and that what scientific knowledge it requires
is of an elementary character. This, however, as
I have already mentioned, is not the general
opinion, and young men who aspire to appoint¬
ments in architectural firms, or to winning confi¬
dence in independent positions, as a rule undergo
the technical training in full, and may possibly in
some cases seek the special diploma which is now
open to them to obtain.

The examinations for the diploma are two.
They are conducted by a commission appointed
by the Ministry of Education on the nomination
of the department in question. To enter for them
a student must be matriculated, and, if he is a

German subject, he must possess the full leaving
certificate from a German classical, semi-classical,
or upper modern school — a condition which is re¬
laxed only in the case of foreigners, who are
required, however, to produce evidence of a pre¬
paratory education of a like thoroughness.

For the first examination the student must have
spent at least two years in a German Technical
High School or some foreign school approved for
the purpose. He must also submit certain draw¬
ings certified by his teachers to have been executed
by him during his course of study ; or, in special
cases, otherwise formally attested. These draw¬
ings must include : —

(a) Geometrical drawings, together with skiography and
perspective as applied to details, and showing the lines of con¬
struction.

(/)) Drawings illustrating the laws of statics.

(f) Drawings showing elementary construction in stone and
wood.

(d) Freehand drawings, especially from ornaments and
natural objects.

(e) Drawings illustrating the theoretical principles of ancient
architecture.

(/) A survey with levels, taken by the student under the super¬
vision of his teacher, or of a qualified surveyor, certified by one
of them, and with the field books appended.

(g) The design for a small building of the simplest kind, with
special reference to construction.

Should these drawings be approved, the student
may present himself for the examination, which
consists partly of set problems and partly of oral
questions in the following subjects : —

(1) The leading laws of physical phenomena.

(2) The e.emeuts of inorganic chemistry.

(3) Descriptive geometry, together with projection, skiography,
and perspective in their applications to architecture.

(4) Statics: ( a ) The theory of equilibrium as applied to the

VOL. XfTI. — O

A rch it e dura l Educa tiov .

182

determination of strains in trusses, the determination of bear¬
ing weights and cross-strains for ordinary beams, stability of
walls and arches; and (6) the stability of beams in regard to
tension, pressure, thrust, bending, and breaking.

(5) The elements of construction. The simpler forms of con¬
struction, including the most important details, but excluding
iron construction.

(6) The principles of ancient architecture. The special forms
and successive styles of Greek and Roman architecture.

Failure to pass in any of these subjects, or to work
out the set problems satisfactorily, involves failure
in the whole examination, as the principle of com¬
pensation is not recognised. The candidate is
allowed only one further opportunity of making
good his deficiencies.

The second examination can be taken at the
earliest at the end of the fourth year, and at an
interval of at least three terms from the first.
Here, too, a large number of drawings must be
submitted, and these must, as a rule, form part of
the work done by the student in the School, and
be so certified by his teacher. They must in¬
clude —

(a) A drawing of a building in perspective, showing the shad¬
ing, and of a scale large enough to show details.

( b ) Drawings showing elementary construction in stone, wood,
and iron.

id) Simple and diversified designs, showing a detailed ac¬
quaintance with different styles and various kinds of architecture
(1 e ) Drawings and studies in ornament, coloured decoration,
and natural objects.

(/) Original design for an entire building or for the important
parts of one, showing the original - ketches.

If these are approved, the .candidate is asked to
work out, within three months, a set task intended
to exhibit his professional talents and the extent
to which he has mastered his technical knowledge.
If he does this satisfactorily he is admitted to the
examination, which consists, as before, of pro¬
blems and oral questions. The questions now
range over the following subjects : —

(1) Statics of construction ; analytical and graphical calcula¬
tion of walls, arches, ceilings, and roofs.

(2) Theory of construction, including foundations and internal
detail.

(3) Town and country houses; construction and arrangement
of agricultural buildings, dwelling houses, and public offices.

(4) Ventilation and heating ; hygienic, physical, and technical
principles; general arrangements.

(5) Building materials.

(6) The principles of ancient and Renaissance, as also of early
C iristian and Mediaeval architecture.

(7) The history of the foregoing styles, and of the r chief
periods; the general plan and construction of the more impor-
t nt buildings.

(8) General history of Art, with special questions in (a) con¬
struction, including statics, ventilation, heating, materials, etc.,
or in (b) ancient and Renaissance architecture, including theory,
construction, materials, history; or in (c) early Christian an 1
Mediaeval architecture, including similar details.

This second examination is governed by the
same conditions as the first, and failure in one
subject involves failure in all. On passing it, the
candidate receives his diploma, and the School is

now empowered to grant him the general degree
in engineering which is granted to successful
students in other departments. He may then call
himself, if he chooses, Diplomirter Jngenieur.

I ought to add, however, that this arrangement,
which in the case of architectural students in the
School came into operation only in October last,
is, so far as they are concerned, provisional. It
does not extend to a further examination, as in
the case of students in other departments, whereby
the degree of “Doctor of Engineering’' can be
obtained. My impression is that if the architec¬
tural student in Berlin wishes to have any diploma
at all, he will enter for the examinations conducted
by the State, which are indispensable to all who
aspire to public appointments, whether in the
service of the State or of the municipalities.
These examinations are three in number, and the
first two correspond generally to those which I
have described, although, so far as I am in a
position to judge, pure mathematics plays a larger
part in them than is now considered necessary in
the School. Four or five years ago, the course of
instruction there in the first and second years
comprised lectures and practical courses four
times a week on higher mathematics and
mechanics, but these have recently been struck
out of the course at Berlin — a change which
architectural educationists in this country may find
instructive. As for the third of the State exami¬
nations, it can be taken only if and when the
candidate has spent at least three years in practi¬
cal work of an official kind. It is held by a mixed
commission appointed by the Ministry of Public
Works, and follows the same lines as the second,
except that the oral questions refer in the main to
the construction and arrangement of public
buildings, and include legal and administrative
problems.

The extent to which architectural education is
provided in Germany, and the place assigned to it
in every attempt there made to bring the highest
knowledge to bear upon professional training
generally, may be seen in the fact that a complete
curriculum, together with examinations for a
diploma in this subject, is also provided in the
eight other Technical High Schools within the
borders of the Empire, namely, in those at Han¬
over, Aix-la-Chapelle, Brunswick, Dresden, Darm¬
stadt, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Munich. A
similar advantage is certain to be offered in the
Technical High School now building at Breslau.
These institutions are not incorrectly described as
Technical Universities — Hochschule is, indeed, the
old German word for university — and, besides
Berlin, those at Hanover, Stuttgart, and Munich
are already authorised to grant degrees. The
curriculum in architecture which they supply,

A rchitectural Education.

although doubtless governed by similar aims, is
not identical in plan, in regard either to the
distribution of the subjects or to the time allotted
to them. The difference, may, I feel, be impor¬
tant in the eyes of those who are preparing, or
desire to prepare, educational schemes ; but so far
as Germany and its Technical High Schools are
concerned, the space at my disposal will not allow
me to do more than examine these differences
very briefly in the case of one of them.

For this purpose I select the school at Munich.
Although much smaller than its northern rival,
both in equipment and in the number of its
students, this Bavarian institution, I am told,
enjoys the distinction of being regarded by a good
many natives and by most foreigners as second
only to that at Berlin, in the advantages which it
offers for a sound and comprehensive education in
architecture. This may, however, be largely due
to the position which Munich occupies as one of
the acknowledged homes of Art, to the Italian in¬
fluence which forms so striking a feature of the
city, and, in particular, to the number of fine
buildings which it contains. From the atmo¬
sphere in which the school flourishes it might be
expected, perhaps, to attach less importance to
the scientific than to the artistic aspects of the
subject, but I cannot find that such is the case.
On the contrary, as will presently appear, this
very atmosphere seems to produce the opposite
effect, for greater attention is there given to
mathematics than is given at Berlin, and students
who come from classical schools are recommended
to devote a preliminary year to a course in which
mathematics plays a large part.

Nor are the conditions of matriculation quite
the same, although they are hardly less severe.
Candidates from industrial schools* in Bavaria,
if sufficiently qualified, are admitted. There
are also some indications of academic com¬
pulsion at Munich. A student, for instance,
cannot obtain a certificate that he has attended a
course of lectures unless he enters for the terminal
examination held by the lecturer. The kind of
curriculum in architecture provided for those who
have had their previous training in semi-classical,
upper modern, or industrial schools, may be seen
by the following table : —

The Architectural Curriculum at Munich.

First Year.

Higher Mathematics, Part I.

Descriptive Geometry
Experimental Physics

General Experimental Chemistry including the
elements of organic chemistry
Technical Mechanics, Part I.

Winter Summer
Term. Term.
L. P. . L. PC.

63 - -

4 4 4 4

6 - 4 ~

- - 5 ~

- - 4 -

* I.c., schools in which the elements of technical education
are taught to boys.

183

Theory of Construction, Part I. . . ..14

Theoretical principles of Ancient Architecture 1 4

Skiography . . . . . . . . . . ..12

Drawing of Ornament . - 4

Algebraical Analysis (for those from semi-clas-

sical schools) . . . . . . . . - -

Practical Studies in Ancient Architecture

(optional) . . . . . . . . . . - -

Second Year.

Technical Mechanics, Part II. (Graphic Statics) 3 -
Statics of Construction . . . . . . — -

Theory of Construction, Part II. . . ..36

Building Materials . . . . . . . . 3 -

General History of Art . . . . . . 4 -

The styles of Ancient Architecture . . . . 2 -

Principles and styles of Mediaeval Architecture 2 4

Principles of Renaissance Architecture, Part I. 1 4

Perspective . . . . . . . . . . ..12

Drawing from Ornaments and Figures . . - 4

Studies in ancient styles (optional) . . - 2

Third Year.

Surveying . 4 2

Applied Physics (Heating,, Ventilation, etc.) . . 3 -

Architecture of Public Buildings . . . . 48

Farm and Agricultural Buildings . . . . 22

Mediaeval Architecture (designs of smaller

buildings) . . . . . . . . . . - 4

Principles of Renaissance Architecture, Part II. - 2
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . - 2

Subterranean Construction . . . . _ -

Drawing from Ornaments and Figures . . - 4

Modelling . . . . . . . . . . _ 6

Practical Surveys . . . . . . . . - _

Practical Designs . . . . . . . . - -

Farm and Agricultural Buildings, Part II. - -

(The last three optional.)

Fourth Year.

The Renaissance Style . . . . . . - -

Studies in Renaissance Architecture .. .. - 14

Studies in Mediaeval Architecture . . - 4

Internal Decoration . . . . . . ..14

^Esthetics . . . . . . . . . . 1 -

Estimates . . . . . . . . . . - -

Railway Buildings. . .. .. .. . . - -

General Machinery . . . . . . 3 _

Architectural Hygiene . . . . . . - -

The laws affecting Architects in Bavaria (obli¬
gatory for aspirants to Government Ser¬
vice) . 3 -

Drawing from Ornaments and Figures . . - 4

Modelling . . . . . . . . . . - 6

Laying Out of Towns . . . . . . ..1-

Historical Development of the Farmhouse .. 22

(The last two optional.)

- 4

1 6

- 4

4 -

2 -

3 6

2 -

4 -

3 -

2 4

1 4

- 4

- I

- 4

- 2
3 8

- 4

- 2

4 -

- 4

- 6

- 1

- 2

2 2

2 -

- 14

- 4

1 4

2 -

1 -

2 -

- 4

- 6

1 -

The numbers given represent the hours devoted to each subject every
week. L = lecture, P.C. — practical class.

A friend at Munich tells me that some of the
older architects in that city are apt to complain
of a lack of practical knowledge in those who tryr
to exercise their profession soon after undergoing
this curriculum, and that by way of partly, at
least, supplying its alleged deficiences in this
respect they recommend a year’s apprenticeship
in a good firm before beginning the curriculum at
all. Others argue that the deficiences, if any,
would be entirely overcome if in addition to this
previous training the student were to spend his
summer vacation in working in an office.

To the adoption of so rigorous a measure it may

o 2

Architectural Ilduca lion.

184

be objected, however, that even a German student
requires some relaxation after several months’
close atcendance at lectures and classes, and that
a scheme which calls for supplementary effort of
this kind leaves something- to be desired. Another
criticism which I have heard made is that while
the curriculum seems to afford ' sufficient oppor¬
tunity to the student to develop any artistic
capacities which he may possess — for example, in
drawing or painting — the amount of scientific
knowledge to be mastered allows him only a very
short time for these exercises, and that, if the
architect is to be anything of an artist, he will
do well to spend a year in some special school or
academy for them alone. The conclusion to be
drawn from these comments is, I imagine, that
the public cares little what education a man has
received or what examinations he has passed, so
long as he proves himself to be a good architect in
actual practice.

After the full account which I have given of the
examinations at Berlin I propose to be very brief
about those at Munich. They are arranged on
somewhat different lines. There is, first of all,
an Absolutorial or leaving examination, open only
to matriculated students who have been regular
in their attendance at lectures. This can betaken
in two parts, and to pass it is fair evidence that
the candidate has gone through the curriculum
with success. If he gets a first class in all the
subjects comprising it, he may be recommended
without more ado for the diploma. In other
cases, however, the diploma involves a separate
examination. But this Absolutorial examination
at Munich seems to carry the ordinary student no
further than a first examination for the diploma.
It also provides for the submitting of drawings
and the working out of problems as a necessary
preliminary, and the first part deals in the main
with mathematical subjects, elementary chemistry
and physics, and freehand drawing. The second
part is virtually the first examination for the
diploma ; but in view of the possibility of a student
obtaining the diploma by this and the introduc¬
tory examination alone, it partakes to some extent
of the subjects of the final examination. The final
examination at Munich resembles final examina¬
tions elsewhere, except that the attention to
mathematics and mechanics characteristic of the
school is kept up to the end. Since 1901 the
school can also bestow the degree of Doctor of
Technical Science on architectural students who
submit an approved thesis and stand an oral ex¬
amination. Of the two examinations conducted
by the State the first is not required of those who
have taken the diploma, but the second is obli¬
gatory, and no candidate can be admitted to it
who has not already engaged in practice.

I now pass to Vienna. The Austrians take
some pride in the fact that theirs was the first
country in Europe to adopt a regular system of
State-aided technical instruction and to promote
the specialisation of study, although they readily
admit that their efforts in this direction have,
partly owing to financial considerations, been
thrown into the shade by Germany. The Tech¬
nical High School in the capital is in point of
size, equipment, and the number of its students
more comparable with the one at Munich than
with the one at Berlin, and, like the Bavarian
institution, it shows a tendency to prescribe a
definite curriculum and make it compulsory'. The
Lernfrciheit, which is expressly stated in the
statutes to be the principle underlying the in¬
struction given exists, perhaps, only on paper ; as
a matter of fact courses are laid down in each
department, the students are expected to take
them, and examinations are held to decide the
extent to which they have learned from them.
That is to say, the system to which we are accus¬
tomed in England is making its way, and the
specifically German system, which, in the opinion
of very competent observers gives better results,
is gradually being discarded. In the judgment,
indeed, of one most distinguished Austrian man
of science whom I consulted, the Technical High
Schools in the Dual Monarchy are for this very
reason, in their whole aim and character, only
magnified secondary schools. There are others,
I need hardly say, who dispute this view, and,
now that the Technical High School in Vienna
has the right to grant a doctor's degree, claim for
it that it is, or soon will be, on the same intellec¬
tual level as the University. Students are ad¬
mitted to it only on conditions similar to those
which prevail in Germany, and the candidates
from classical schools are further required, what¬
ever department they may enter, to show a suffi¬
cient acquaintance with geometrical and freehand
drawing.

The full architectural course takes four and a
half years, and the instruction and the hours of
work are distributed as below. This course is laid
down with the approval of the Ministry of Edu¬
cation, and as such it apparently embraces only
those subjects which are necessary for the State
examinations.

The Architectural Curriculum at Vienna.

First Year. Hours a Week.

Winter. Summer

Higher Mathematics .. .. ... .. . . 4 4

Descriptive Geometry and Working Drawings ..10 10

Elements of Pure Mechanics in combination with

Graphic Statics (including practical work) ..5 5

Technical Chemistry ... .. .. .. .. - 3

Theory of Architectural Forms .. .. 3

Architectural Drawing I. .. .. .. ..6 6

Freehand Drawing I. .. .. .. .. 4 4

A rch itectura l E duca tion ,

Second Year. Hours a Week.

Winter. Summer

Technical Mechanics I.

General and Technical Physics

Geology, Part I. . .

Mechanical Technology

Construction (lectures). .

Architectural Drawing II.

Freehand Drawing II. . .

History of Architecture I.

Machinery

Third Year.

Elements of Surveying

Mechanics and Graphic Statics

7§

General Architecture (practical classes)

Ancient Architecture

Architectural Drawing and Studies in Composi¬
tion I.

History of Architecture II.

Drawing of Ornaments I.

Modelling I.

Fourth Year.

Early Christian and Mediaeval Architecture

Drawing of Ornaments II.

Modelling II.

Architectural Drawing and Studies in Composi¬
tion II.

Agricultural and Industrial Buildings, Public
Offices

Studies in Composition in ditto

Engineering

Fifth Year.

Renaissance Architecture

Architectural Drawing and Studies in Composi¬
tion III

The Laws affecting Architects

Beyond this, however, attendance at lectures
on political economy is also obligatory, and stu¬
dents can take them in their first, second, or fifth
year. But the following courses are recommended
as well, and they seem, indeed, to supply some
obvious deficiencies in the regular curriculum : —
Statics of Construction (third or fourth year),
Heating and Ventilation (second or fifth), Con¬
tracting (third or fourth), ^Esthetics (first or
second), Building Materials (third or fourth);
Pictorial Perspective (third, fourth, or fifth).

The system of examinations in the Technical
High School at Vienna provides that students
who wish for certificates of satisfactory attend¬
ance can obtain them by submitting to terminal
examinations in the subjects in which they study.
The test imposed consists of oral questions, de¬
signs worked out in the practical courses, and
tasks done at home. The main examinations,
however, are those ordered by the State, which
are obligatory on all who desire to become civil
servants, or to obtain official recognition of their
capacity for private practice. The first of these
examinations, in the case of architectural stu¬
dents, covers such subjects as higher mathe¬
matics, descriptive geometry, physics, geology,
mechanics, and graphic statics ; but a student
who has passed the terminal tests in them with
sufficient distinction is exempt; The second deals

■ 8s

with the other subjects given in the obligatory cur¬
riculum, and the student, in addition to solving set
problems and answering oral questions, may sub¬
mit work done in the course of his studies at the
School, and, under proper guarantees, may also
submit evidence of work done outside it. Students
who desire it can, after passing the two State
examinations, proceed to the degree of Doctor of
Technical Science on writing an approved dis¬
sertation and undergoing a further oral examina¬
tion of a severe character ; but this degree is taken,
as a rule, only by those who wish to become
academic teachers.

As to the value of the curriculum and of the
diploma to be obtained by the examinations at
Vienna, I cannot do better than give the readers
of The Architectural Review the benefit of
an opinion expressed to me by an eminent archi¬
tect of that city, who is also distinguished by his
practical share in the work of education. For
obvious reasons he does not wish his name to be
mentioned, more especially as he deals not only
with the results produced by the Technical High
School, but also with the position of architects
who are educated in the industrial schools or in
the Academy of Art. With regard to these three
institutions, “the industrial schools,” he says,
“were originally intended in the main to provide
foremen and master builders, but the more
talented students from these schools have in the
last decade often proceeded to the Academy of
Art, and, owing to the advantages of the two-
years’ course there given them, have found them¬
selves in a position to compete successfully with
those who have gone through the regular curri¬
culum at the Technical High School. These
students have received a practical training which
in many cases makes them more fitted for the
exercise of their profession than the others, who
come from the Technical High School full of
theoretical knowledge, which they seldom find
very useful in actual work, and therefore easily
forget. The result of this is that those who have
received their training in the industrial schools
often prove better assistants than men with
diplomas, and often succeed in competitions
where the others fail. It is generally felt, indeed,
that, in view of these circumstances, the curri¬
culum at the Technical High School cannot be
regarded as entirely satisfactory, and that other
relations than those which now exist ought to be
established between the three institutions.” The
bearing of these observations on some features of
the problem of architectural education in England
is obvious.

As German methods to some extent prevail also
in the Polytechnic at Zurich, this brief descrip¬
tion of them will be incomplete unless I refer to

1 86

4 rchitectural Education.

that institution. Its aim, at least, is to provide
instruction as good as that given in Germany;
and German professors, I am told, sometimes be¬
come professors there, and vice versa. Its im¬
portance may perhaps be measured by the fact
that it is a Federal institution administered by a
Council appointed by the Swiss Government,
which furnishes it with an annual subsidy of
/32,ooo — a sum defraying nearly 95 per cent, of
its total expenses. It has also the advantage, for
the purpose of this paper, of being situated, like
the institutions of which I have already treated,
in the same city with a university ; so that its
efforts are partly directed by an already existing
academic influence and partly spurred by hon¬
ourable rivalry. In the opinion of most of the
authorities of the Polytechnic, however, it has
long surpassed the local university, which is
not a Federal but only a cantonal establish¬
ment.

Although the architectural department is the
first of the eight into which the Polytechnic at
Zurich is divided, it is not either in equipment or
in the results which it achieves on a level with
one or two of the others ; certainly not with the
chemical or mechanical departments. This, I
understand, is one of the causes, and possibly
also one of the effects, of the defective education
and comparatively low standard of general culture
which the average Swiss architect exhibits. It is
true that care seems to be taken here as else¬
where that students shall not be admitted to the
classes unless they have had a satisfactory pre¬
vious training. They are not admitted before the
age of eighteen unless they have been specially
distinguished at school ; nor are they relieved of
a somewhat strict entrance examination unless
they possess the leaving certificate from some
recognised school, or have already engaged in
practice with some success. But so far as I can
gather from the judgment of a friend of mine in
Zurich very well qualified to pronounce an
opinion, the curriculum in architecture at the
Polytechnic is of a dull character, and entirely
1 icking in the flexibility which is so distinctive a
feature of the best teaching in Germany. It is
obligatory in the sense that every student is, with
few exceptions, bound to attend all the lectures
in the course, and also to enter for the corres¬
ponding examinations, although in the last year
and a half he is free to determine of what lectures
and practical classes his course shall consist. One
of the features of the Zurich curriculum, I may
mention, is an arrangement by which private
classes are held for the repetition of the substance
of previous lectures. The course in architecture
occupies three and a half years and is arranged
as follows : —

The Architectural Curriculum at Zurich

First Year.

Higher Mathematics
Repetition

Descriptive Geometry
Repetition
Practical Classes
Construction

Practical Classes
Architectural Drawing
Drawing cf Ornaments (Models)

,, ,, (Sketches)

Modelling

History of Ancient Art
,, Mediaeval Art
Theory of Form (practice in Sketching)

Mechanics

Repetition
Practical Classes
Geology

Repetition

Second Year.

Theory of Style. .

Composition (Practical Classes)

Construction

Practical Classes
Statics of Construction
Repetition

Theory of Building I. ..

Perspective

Practical Classes

Drawing from Figures (including the nude) .

Drawing of Ornaments in Colour
Hygiene
Decoration
Landscape Drawing
Machinery

Practical Classes . .

Technology of Materials
Repetition

Construction in Iron

Third Year.

Theory of Style (Renaissance)

Composition (Practical Classes)

Internal Construction
Theory of Building

Construction in Iron (Practical Classes)

Drawing from Figures (including the nude)

Drawing of Ornament (Sketches)

Mediaeval Architecture (with Practical Classes) . . - 4

Ornament and Decoration (Practical Classes) . . - 4

Internal Construction (Estimates) .. .. .. - 2

Public Buildings . . . . . . . . . . - 2

Landscape Drawing in Water Colour .. . . 4

Architectural Law . . . . . . . . - 4

Fourth Year. Winter

Theory of Style (Renaissance) . . . . . . . . 2

Composition (Practical Classes) . . . . . . . . 12

Drawing of Ornaments . . . . . . . . • • 4

Commercial Law . . . . . . • • • • 4

Repetition . . . . . . . . • • • • 1

The examinations for the diploma are two :
one preparatory, taken at the end of the second
year and covering the instruction in integral and
differential calculus, descriptive geometry, me¬
chanics, machinery, and the history of Art; the
other, an oral test in the following subjects : —
rough buildings in stone and wood, construction
(including iron), hygiene (including heating, ven¬
tilation, water supply, etc.), comparative archi¬
tecture and architectural history, theory of build-

Hours Weekly.
Winter. Summer

• • 4

••3 3

..6 6

•• 3

• • - 4

• • 4

■ • - 4

_ 2

. . - 6

2 3

6 8

3 2

6 6

1 -

2 2
6

4 1 ~

- 2

3
1

2 5

6 8

6 4

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition. 187

ing, general law. In addition the candidate is
required to produce in his last term a design for
a large building on set lines.

I ought not to conclude this paper without
drawing attention to a movement now on foot in
Germany which has a special interest in connec¬
tion with architecture. The German workman
is beginning to feel that he would occupy a better
position in the eyes of employers, and be more
likely to succeed against undesirable competitors,
if he were able to produce a certificate of efficiency,
and if such a certificate were made a condition of
employment. This movement, I am told, is par¬
ticularly strong among the higher class of work¬
men engaged in the building trades. The subject
recently came up for discussion in the Reichstag,

when the Government announced, however, that
an inquiry into the conditions prevailing in these
trades had not yielded results which could as yet
lead to legislative action. But the movement is
hardly likely to be suppressed by this declaration,
which may well have been dictated by the ex¬
igencies of the political and social situation in
Germany at the present time ; for the view that
the workman requires to be educated quite as
much as the professional man is undeniably
sound. In no sphere of employment, indeed,
would such training be of greater benefit to the
public, and if the good architect could always be
sure of finding good workmen, it would be so
much the better for his art.

T. Bailey Saunders.

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition.

II. — By D. S. MacCgll.

I AM to reply for the critics, but I must pre¬
mise that I do so as a designer who has enjoyed the
hospitality of the Society and sympathised with
its general aims. Anything I say is by way of
pointing out how these aims may be furthered
and more efficiently carried out.

With that in view, nothing, I think, is gained by
Mr. Macartney’s general sally against the critics,
unless their attacks are met in detail and refuted.
So far as my observation goes, the Society has
been till now the spoiled child of criticism ; what
it has done has been taken at its own valuation,
and the illustrated art reviews have vied with
one another in reproducing what has been ex¬
hibited, and saying that if is all first-rate. If
then, this year, one or two of the more thoughtful
critics have sounded a warning note, there is
probably reason for it, and it will not do to treat
them as ignorant and spiteful assailants. It is
sounder policy to recognise where the arrow
has found a joint, and stop that up. The phrase'
I have just used recalls the fact that many joints
in the Society’s exhibition not only exist, but
gape. Mr. Macartney says that “ very few, if
any, critics are equipped with the essential know¬
ledge of workmanship as well as design.” Surely
a very elementary knowledge of workmanship is
sufficient to judge of yawning mitreings ; to
recognise when the doors of cabinets will not
shut, or their drawers open. And it will not do
to pretend that the workmanship all round is any¬
thing to boast of, or even that there is a great
deal that is out of the way of the most ordinary
skill. There were, here and there, in the exhibi¬
tion, examples of really remarkable craftsmanship,
but the skill required in most cases for the execu¬
tion of the work is nothing out of the way, and

not to be compared with what is to be seen any
day of the week in the shops of the so-called
“ commercial ” firms.

The pose of “ craftsmanship,” then, is one in
which the Society invites criticism, and even ridi¬
cule. We should recognise that skill of hand is not a
very rare thing — skill of mind is ; and the attitude
of the amateur who is surprised at getting through
an elementary piece of mechanical work without
a glaring breakdown is not an edifying one. The
Japanese who would perform for twopence really
difficult feats of metal inlay would have a right to
laugh at British gentlemen taking credit for
getting a few pieces of wood nearly to meet one
another, without warping to the extent of a
semi-circle. Mr. Macartney knows good work¬
manship far too well to be deceived. In a pre¬
vious exhibition, some furniture designed by him
was really worth examining from that point of
view ; it went beyond the A B C of carpentry
into some finesse. I suggest, then, as the first
piece of sensible reform at the Arts and Crafts
that the names of workmen should not be flour¬
ished in the catalogue, unless the workmanship
is really exquisite, or requires in the workman
himself some power of interpretation.

I have mentioned furniture. The extravagance
or poverty of a great deal shown this year has
been so fully commented on by others that I need
not say anything on that head. The root of the
mischief evidently was the abdication of the com¬
mittee from the duty of judging one another’s
work. When committees come ro this pass the
only step that remains in that direction is to form
themselves into an academy. But the Arts and
Crafts Society will doubtless have the good sense
to retrieve a false step. Furniture is evidently a
difficulty for the single handed designer, as I have

1 88

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition.

before now pointed out. If his designs are not
extravagantly “ individual,” he can hardly put a
high enough price on the single article to pay him
for his time; to make good unassertive design
pay he must be a capitalist and produce things on
a large scale, i.e., start a shop ; and the capital
at least is equally required if he devotes himself
to elaborate articles in costly material. Nothing
is gained by obscuring this fact and complaining
that “ the conditions of modern life and our com¬
mercial civilisation " make it impossible to sell
kitchen chairs at five pounds a piece. Much of the
talk about “ commercial manufacture ” as opposed
to Arts and Crafts manufacture is rubbish, and
not very honest rubbish. The strength ofWilliam
Morris’s position was that he had capital as well
as designing power, and ran a shop successfully.
Why do artists live in jerry-built houses ? Merely
because artists are lazy, ill-tempered and jealous ;
and no two or three of them can find enough
business ability and co-operative spirit to combine,
build a house, and live in it. Why do they use
jerry-designed furniture ? Because for variations
on a kitchen chair they expect the world to pay
them as if for a piece of sculpture or jewellery.
1 he fact is that at present the Arts and Crafts
people have a quite unfair commercial advantage
over the so-called “ commercial ” shop. Call a
shop not a shop, but a “ guild,” and all the papers
will publish admiring articles about its contents
which otherwise would have to be paid for in the
advertisement columns. Let me beg our designers
then, having dropped the piece of cant about the
workman, to drop this about commerce, and
apply themselves to commerce frankly. In a very
short time the use of the word guild for what is
not a guild will cure itself. All the doubtful com¬
merces will call themselves guilds, just as all the
drabs call one another “ladies.”

In the furniture business, then, and any other
that requires a number of workmen and production
on a large scale to pay workmen and designer, the
commercial problem is a serious one, and the big
shop with moderate prices is the solution. Let
me return for a moment to what I have called the
kitchen chair. Mr. Macartney is right enough in
saying that in England, when this new movement
began, things had to start de novo. It would 'be
still more exact to say that we middle-class people,
when we began to rub our eyes under Ruskin’s
preaching, had to sacrifice our “ parlours ” and to
start from the only part of the house that had not
succumbed to the art immediately preceding our
own, namely, the kitchen. The new movement,
very wholesome so far as it went, was to spread
the kitchen over the rest of the house ; for the
kitchen, just on the point of becoming obsolete
through the disappearance of cooks, had been

overlooked by Victorian design, and there lingered
in it clean walls and floors, plain wooden dressers,
unteased copper and brass, and a few bits of good
old furniture in disgrace. It was very difficult,
however, to get things like these in the shops, and
the new designers had to pay themselves for putting
them on the market by adding a terrible deal of
“ art ” to them. Hence those horrible town and
village industries of repousse (and repoussant)
copper and brass ; hence those other industries of
wood carving which imitated the considerable
abundance of bad design to be found on old oak
chests and furniture. Hence the necessity, even
for a Morris, of covering an honest paper or stuff
with space-devouring patterns. If anything
simple and satisfactory escaped and got into use
it was because someone made a present of it to the
world. Here is the history of one of those escapes,
which I happen to know. Shortly before the first
Arts and Crafts Exhibition, I think, the late James
MacLaren, an architect whom many of my readers
will remember, had some work to do at Ledbury,
and in a walk we took one day we found, in a little
Worcestershire village, a real survival of village
industry, an old man who made rush-bottomed
chairs, with no other apparatus than his cottage
oven for bending the wood. MacLaren made him
one or two drawings, improving a little upon his
designs, but perfectly simple and in the old spirit,
and got him to make a few chairs after these
designs, which he was quite content to do at eight
shillings apiece. When the Art Workers’ Guild
was formed, these chairs, known to some of its
members, were adopted, and passed from that into
many houses. Whether they are still made I do
not know, but they were made without disturbing
the market price, and without the designer asking
anything for such work as he put into them.
If a designer is to be paid on a moderately-
priced article, it must be made and sold in large
quantities. It will not pay the middle-class artist
to make things so simple with his own hands, for
we cannot pay him at his middle-class designer’s
rate for this elementary handicraft. He must
either make himself so superlative a craftsman
that he can concentrate on single, elaborate
and costly pieces, or he must organise a staff of
workmen who will turn out his simpler designs in
sufficient number to give him a percentage on the
quantity. If he puts out, say, £5 worth of time
on the initial design, he cannot hope to get it
back on one or two repetitions such as he could
make himself ; and it would be a waste of his time.

This economical difficulty does not apply equally
to all the crafts. There are objects which can be
made rare and precious by design and work, and
can also be made by one or by a few pair of hands
and fetch a price that will pay on a small quantity.

Current A rchitecture.

That is why jewellery has come to the front lately
at the Arts and Crafts, and the same thing
applies to some other crafts.

My view then of the present problem for the
arts and crafts movement is that it is mainly a
commercial problem. Till that is solved we shall
have a superabundance of cranky amateur pro¬
ductions of a purely exhibition kind. If there are
to be solid results it is time for the Arts and Crafts
Society to start shop-keeping. To take over the
exhibition idea of the nineteenth century even
when the older exhibitions, like the Academy, were
in decay, was perhaps unavoidable, and it may be
necessary to continue it for some time to come ;
but the sooner this preliminary advertising stage
is over, and the honest shopkeeping begins, the
better. At present what happens is this. An idea
receives its advertisement at the Arts and Crafts
Exhibition. But it is not the inventor who usually
gets the benefit of his idea. It is the shops, which
straightway set their own designers or facile
students from Kensington to parody anything in

I 89

which there seems to be a chance of money. The
really wicked competition is not “ commercial ”
competition ; it is artistic competition, the compe¬
tition of the cribber with the original designer, the
cribber who is prepared to make a colourable
imitation of a design for a quarter of the price,
since it costs him nothing in thought or time.
Protection can never be perfect against this sort
of thing, especially since artists often make part
of their income by raising up fresh hordes of these
cribbers, but there are two ways in which the evil
might be checked. One is for self-respecting firms
to extend their practice of going to the original de¬
signer, putting his name on their wares, and giving
him a royalty. The other is for the arts and crafts
group in each town to go into business and keep
open all the year round a shop in which people
will be able to find the ordinary useful things
for house furnishing at reasonable prices as well
as to commission from designers the rarer and
more costly. A strong committee for selection
would be required, but the thing is not impossible.

Current Architecture

The Royal School of Art Needle¬
work, South Kensington. — The Royal School
of Art Needlework was founded in 1872 by
H.R.H. Princess Christian, and with the help of
the late Lady Marion Alford, Lady Welby, and
other ladies, was started in quite a small way in
Sloane Street, with the double objects of reviv¬
ing the almost lost art of decorative embroidery,
and of giving remunerative employment to needy
ladies of refinement. Since 1876 the school has
been housed in some old buildings of the 1862
Exhibition at South Kensington, where, under
the presidency of H.R.H. Princess Christian, who
has personally worked strenuously and unremit¬

tingly in its interests, it has prospered, and has
just taken up its quarters in the new building
erected for it at the corner of Exhibition Road
and Imperial Institute Road, and almost adjoin¬
ing its old premises. As the workers of the school
have frequently to deal with very large pieces of
work, such as drop scenes for theatres, it is
necessary that both the work-rooms and show¬
rooms should be spacious. The accompanying
first and second floor plans give the show-rooms
and principal work-rooms. There are more work¬
rooms on the third floor, besides kitchen and
dining-rooms. The rooms in the east wing of
the third floor have been leased to the School of

Scconp Floor? Plan -

THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF ART NEEDLEWORK, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
F. B. WADE, ARCHITECT.

Cu rren t A rck itectu re

1 90

THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF ART NEEDLEWORK, SOUTH
KENSINGTON. GENERAL VIEW. F. B. WADE, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

1 9 1

THE PRINCIPAL STAIRCASE, FIRST-FLOOR LEVEL.

THE WEST SHOW-ROOM, LOOKING NORTH. , Photos: E. Dockree.

THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF ART NEEDLEWORK, SOUTH KENSINGTON.

F. B. WADE, ARCHITECT.

192

Current A rchitecture

Photo : E. Dockrec.

FIRE BRIGADE STATION, EUSTON ROAD, W.C. VIEW FROM
EUSTON SQUARE. W. E. RILEY, SUPERINTENDING
ARCHITECT, LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.

Current A rchitecture.

'93

Third Floor Plan.

Wood-Carving. The mezzanine floor and a large
part of the basement have been leased to the
Technical College. The admission of plenty of
daylight to the work-rooms has been an object of
the first importance, the attainment of which
without architectural flimsiness has suggested
the treatment of the second story. It being
unnecessary to make the building lofty, breadth of
treatment has been aimed at in order that it
might hold its own among its greater neigh¬
bours. To this end each story is emphasised by

First Floor Plan.

Fourth Floor Plan.

FIRE BRIGADE STATION, EUSTON ROAD, W.C. PLANS.

W. E. RILF.Y, SUPERINTENDING ARCHITECT,

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.

colour contrast. Thus the roofs show green slate
throughout unbroken by patches of lead-work.
The second story is all Portland stone, and the
walling of the show-room story is of red brick¬
work. The interior walls throughout are treated
plainly, battens being let in for the purpose of
hanging embroidery work, etc., a treatment which
applies also tothe principal staircase. The landings
are paved with black and white marble squares,
the treads and risers of Belgian white marble.
The general contractors were Messrs. G. H. and
A. Bywaters & Sons. Mr. F. B. Wade is the
architect.

Fire Brigade Station, Euston Road. —
The site has a frontage to Euston Road of about
58 feet, and to Euston Square of about 57 feet.
The station is built with Portland stone facings to
the height of the ground flocr, and above that in
red brickwork, with projecting oriel windows in

194

Current A rchitecture

JOINT STATION OF THE FAST INDIAN AND BENGAL & NAGPUR
RAILWAYS, HOWRAH, CALCUTTA. HALSEY RICARDO, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

l9 5

stone, and stone dressings to those windows
immediately beneath the oriels. The accommo¬
dation provided on the ground floor is : —

Engine room, 39 feet by 33 feet, lined with
glazed bricks, and paved with grooved stable
bricks, gives standing room for horsed escape,
steamer, and hose cart, ready for immediate use.
The run out will be across the courtyard in front
of the station of the same depth as the adjoining
gardens, through a gateway at the junction of
Euston Road and Euston Square (Seymour
Street). The run in is on the Euston Square
front through an archway into a small yard, from
which the back engine room doors open. Stables
for six horses in the rear of the engine room, top-
lighted. Provision is made for a fodder room
with loft over adjoining the stalls. The watch
room is on the Euston Road front adjoining the
engine room doorway, and has a floor area of
about 150 feet. The recreation room has a large
bay window looking on to Euston Square, and has
a total floor area of about 400 feet. Adjoining is
lavatory accommodation with spray bath. The
third officer’s private entrance is at the angle of
the building, and is approached from Euston
Square. It communicates directly with a lift and
staircase to the third, fourth, and fifth floors,
where are situated the third officer’s quarters.
One suite of quarters for a married coachman is
also on the ground floor, and adjoins the run in.

The basement extends under all the ground
floor with the exception of the engine room and
stables, and consists of : — Laundry fitted with six
troughs, three coppers, heating chamber, and six
drying horses ; battery room under stairs ; work¬
shop ; separate storage accommodation for coal,
coke, wood, and oil ; twelve coal stores for station
officer and men ; three cellars for third officer's
quarters.

The architect is Mr. W. E. Riley, Superintend¬
ing Architect to the London County Council, and
the work has been carried out by Messrs. Stimp-
son & Co., of 78, Brompton Road, the contract
sum being £14, 377-

Joint Terminal Station of the East
Indian and Bengal & Nagpur Railways at
Howrah, Calcutta. — The traffic on the East
Indian Railway having outgrown the old station,
and the Bengal and Nagpur Railway requiring
an entrance into Calcutta, the Directors of the
East Indian decided to build a joint terminal
station for the two lines. Howrah is across the
water to Calcutta, to which it is joined by a
bridge, and stands much in the same position as
Waterloo does to Westminster, except that the
river is wider. The station is being built of thin
red bricks with a wide mortar joint, for the most

DETAIL. JOINT RAILWAY STATION, HOWkAH,
CALCUTTA. HALSEY RICARDO, ARCHITECT.

part, stone being used only sparingly. The plan
shows the arrangement on the ground floor ; the
first floor is used by the District Traffic Superin¬
tendent, Traffic Manager, Telegraphs, and their
clerks, and on the top floor there are residential
chambers for four officials. Mr. Halsey Ricardo
is the architect.

i(j6 The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

The Palace at Knossos, Crete.

Although the first visit to Knossos was
made by Dr. Evans as far back as 1894, in which
year he was able to purchase a portion of the
property, it was not till 1900 that he succeeded in
acquiring the whole site. The excavations were
commenced in March of the same year, and have
been carried on since with so much energy and
dispatch as to have brought to light the remains
of a palace covering an area of nearly 500 feet
square, almost equal in extent to that of the
Houses of Parliament.

The palace was built on a slight eminence,
about two-thirds (including the great central
court) crowning the crest of the hill ; the remain¬
ing third occupying a slightly lower site on the
slope of the hill (see Fig. 1).

The great central court, measuring 200 feet by
86 feet, runs nearly north and south, and the
largest portion of the palace is on its west side ;
portions of the eastern block are built on a level

some 24 feet below the pavement of the central
court.

The walls of the western side of the palace
consist of a basement about eight feet in height,
the floor of which is a little below the level of the
central court. Those of the eastern side of the
palace consist in part of two storeys, which to¬
gether make up the 24 feet above referred to.
The superstructure on both sides which contained
the principal halls of reception probably rose to
about the same height on each side. A series of
terraces existed on the east side, and the lower
building, which seems to have formed part of the
palace, is a bastion, the walls of which are about
50 feet below the level of the central court.

In consequence of the great thickness of the
walls of the basement of the western block and
their close juxtaposition, the large plan which
we publish is not at first very easy to read,
and as a matter of fact, it probably resembles

Supplement to

The Architectural Review, May i9°3*

SKETCH PLAN OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS.

1 97

The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

that of the basement of most buildings from which,
failing other evidence, it would be difficult to
scheme out the plan of a superstructure. In the
palace of Knossos, however, two other considera¬
tions have to be taken into account. Firstly, the
greatest width which could be floored or even
roofed over without intermediate supports was
18 feet, and there is only one hall of that dimen¬
sion in the palace, that in front of the “ hall of the
double axes ” ; and, secondly, the superstructure
built with rubble masonry in clay mortar, framed
together and bonded with timber, required founda¬
tion or basement walls of exceptional thickness.
Broadly speaking, it would seem that the west
wing of the palace was the public portion, includ¬
ing the entrance portico from the west court, “ the
corridor of the procession,” the south terrace with
its double portico, the south propylaea leading
to the megaron, and the throne-room : the east
wing was the private or residential portion.

There would seem to have been two principal
entrances to the palace, one in the centre of the
north front, the other from the south-west corner
of the west court, which Dr. Evans considers to
have been the agora, where the Minoan King met
his subjects. It was a large open square, the
western limit of which has not yet been explored,
and probably responded to that feature which in
French palaces is known as the “ Cour d’honneur.”
In support of his theory Dr. Evans calls attention

to the stone bench (Fig. 2) built into and forming
part of the masonry of the west wall, where, shel¬
tered in the early part of the day from the rays of
the sun, the king’s subjects could await his sum¬
mons. A similar stone bench has been found in the
palace at Phaestos, excavated by the Italians, in
front of a terrace wall also on the west side. The
northern entrance, Dr. Evans points out, “repre¬
sents the main point of intercourse between the
palace and the city on the one hand, and the port
on the other. Two lines of ancient roadways in fact
here converge — one leading to a region which we
know to have been covered with prehistoric
houses, the other pointing north in the direction
of the sea, where traces exist of an ancient haven
some four miles distant.” This is the only part
of the palace in which there is evidence of some
kind of fortification, and the road of access is
dominated by towers and bastions, whilst other
provisions in the plan of the inner or western
corridor suggest that its passage was properly
protected. The slope of the ground on the east
and south side (the floor of the south terrace
rose from 10 to 12 feet above the ground) may
have been considered a sufficient protection on
those sides, and the western court was probably
enclosed with a wall.

Dr. Evans’ theory as to there having been
“ four main entrances roughly answering to the
points of the compass ” is not borne out by the

FIG. I.— -RUINS OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS, CRETE, AND GENERAL VIEW OF
THE REMAINS ON THE EAST SLOPE.

(By permission. From the “Annual" of the British School at Athens.)

VOL. XIII. — P

1 he Palace at Knossos , Crete.

1 98

plan, as the north-west entrance corridor leads
first to the south terrace, the propylaeum in front
of the great hall can only be reached from that
■terrace, and on the east side the entrance to the
“hall of the double axes” is from a terrace to
which so far no direct approach has been found (see
Fig 1). Although at first sight the plan with its
great central court and main entrance at the north
end, and the relation of the walls all built at right
angles to one another, resembles that of a Roman
palace, which suggests its having been set out
symmetrically or on a well-considered programme ;
a further study shows that it differs widely from
the Roman principles of symmetry and central
axes. The walls of the west front jut out into the
western court at varying distances. In the central
court there are projecting blocks at the north-east
and south-west corners, and the entrance passage
is not quite in the axis of the central court. In
this respect, however, it is more in accordance
with Greek principles where the work was set
out on the spot to suit the site and requirements,
and the entrance portico and blocks of building
were placed without any regard for that sym¬
metry which seems to have been all important to
the Roman builder. The far greater picturesque
grouping of the various buildings, as suggested in
the plan, recalls that which we find on the acro¬
polis at Athens, and in the sacred enclosures at
Olympia, Delphi, and other shrines of Greece,
rather than in the palaces of the Caesars, or the
Thermae of Rome. It is, however, precisely this
which renders a clear description all the more
difficult, increased by the fact that the upper floors
which contained the great halls have all perished,

so that it is only by the most minute examina¬
tion of the upper part of the walls remaining, that
Dr. Evans has been able to suggest the probable
plan. In this he has been partiallv assisted by
the parallel afforded in the palace at Phaestos,
also in Crete, which has been explored by the
Italians during the last two years.

With the exception of its construction to which
we shall return later on, and one hall to which
the title of throne room has been given, there are
no architectural features in the basement storey
of the western block which it is necessary here to
enter into. They consist of an endless series of
storerooms and magazines which in their solid
masonry and general construction were far supe¬
rior to that of the ephemeral materials of which
the upper floors were built. Curiously, however,
it is probably owing to this latter fact that Dr.
Evans' discoveries have been made ; a fierce con¬
flagration apparently burnt all the timber of the
roofs and columns, and subsequent rain crumbled
away all the walls* and virtually buried the palace.
The inhabitants returned to plunder the palace
and search for the treasures, but the stone sub¬
structures were too heavy to be moved and have
consequently remained in situ. Had the upper
part been built in stone the palace would not have
been buried in the same way, and within a couple
of centuries the materials would all have been taken
away to use up in the erection of other buildings.

The principal state entrance was in the south¬
west corner of the west court through a portico of
one column in antis. f This arrangement is found
elsewhere here, and at Phaestos. The architect
having settled the width of the portico, preferred
to use one column as an in¬
termediate support (if the
span was not too great) in¬
stead of encumbering the
entrance with two columns.
At Phaestos the antas or re¬
sponds of the portico to the
great megaron project six
feet from the side walls so as
to retain as it were the one
column, although in the rear
wall there was a central
doorway beyond. In the

* These in some cases carried with
them portions of the fresco painting
with which they were decorated, for
as it would appear from Dr. Evans’
description the finest of these have
been found in the basement corridors.

| The evidence of the columns lies
in the stone base still in situ mea¬
suring 3 feet in diameter and 4 in.
high : throughout the palace, all
the columns were in timber and
raised on stone bases.

FIG. 2. — WESTERN COURT AND GREAT GYPSUM WALL.
(By permission. From the “Annual" of the British School at Athens.)

1 99

The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

rear on the right of the portico was the guard
room, and on the left a passage 10 feet wide,
called by Dr. Evans “ the corridor of the pro¬
cession,” the walls having been decorated with
paintings representing a state procession. This
corridor led to a terrace 28 feet wide and 165 feet
long so far as it has been traced. Dr. Evans
thinks there is evidence of its further extension,
which would be necessary if only to give access
to the central court. This terrace, facing the south,
was probably roofed over with a peristyle (Fig. 3),
carried by two rows of columns which would form
a sufficient protection from the sun when at its
zenith. At a distance of 85 feet from the west
end of the terrace is the axis of the propyl a: a
leading to the great megaton, which seems to
have consisted of a portico of one column in antis.
The stone base no longer existed, but traces were
found of the ants projecting four feet from the side
walls, which suggested an arrangement like that
at Phaestos.0 In the rear of this portico was a
wall pierced with three doorways, the sill of the
right hand one only existing. At a distance of
4 feet 6 inches beyond the doorways and on either
side of the propylaea walls were found the bases of
two other columns. The width between these
walls was 30 feet, far too great a span to roof over
without intermediate supports. It is probable
therefore that there were three other columns

* In the palace at Phaestos there were no substanchions to
the megaron, so that the bases, sills of doorways, and foundation
of walls have all been preserved.

FIG. 3. — WESTERN BLOCK.

Portions blacked-in taken from Dr. Evans’ restoration.
Portions hatched, taken from general plan.

Portions outlined, conjectural restoration.

and a pier on each side forming a double avenue
similar to that which has been found at Phaestos,
except that there, owing to the greater width
across the central avenue, viz., 24 feet, the
aisles only could have been roofed over. This
would bring the four columns and pier in a line
with the end of the walls as found. Beyond this
was an open court, called the Court of the Altar
by Dr. Evans, the stone base of an altar having
been found in a rectangular recess on the right
of the court. The level of the court of the altar
is about 5 feet below that of the great megaron,
portions of the upper walls of which were found
by Dr. Evans. He assumes therefore that, as at
Phaestos, there was a flight of stone steps (of
which all traces are now gone) leading up to a
portico of one column in-antis. Here the antse
measured 8 feet on the right hand side and 6 feet
6 inches on the left, and the wall in the rear had
two doorways only. These led into a hall 24 feet
deep and 36 feet wide, whose roof was carried by
three columns down the centre." Two doorways
in the rear of the megaron opened into a cross
corridor leading from the upper long gallery on the
right (which rises above the corridor of the maga¬
zines), and on the left to a door giving access to a
flight of eight steps descending into the central
court. This flight of steps, in the centre of which
was a single column, formed the approach to
another long room crossing the palace, in the
centre of which was found the lower portion of a
wall ; this may only have been a stone bench, but
Dr. Evans suggests that it carried a central line of
three columns. There was no necessity, struc¬
turally speaking, for them, as the hall was only
16 feet wide, and, as we have pointed out, there
is a hall 18 feet in width whose roof was carried
without intermediate supports. The question of
the admission of light to these halls is too large
a question to take up here; but Dr. Evans’ pro¬
position of a well for light on the left scarcely
seems probable, in view of the fact that there
is a cross wall below in the basement ; the well
for light would surely have been carried down
to the lowest floor. The only alternative for ob¬
taining light is that which is suggested in the great
Roman Thermae, where the halls, rising above
the side passages and smaller rooms, have cle¬
restory windows over the same. The only other
rooms shown on the plan are apparently state
bedrooms, which might be occupied by the king’s
guests if our theory as to the residential portion
of the palace being in the eastern block is
correct.

* They are not quite central, perhaps to give more room for
a throne in the rear. Dr. Evans points out here that the
hearth as found at Tiryns and as described in the Homeric
poems has not been found either here or in the palace at
Phaestos.

200

The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

FIG. 4. — ENTRANCE TO THRONE ROOM ON LEFT. WELI.-HOLI PARAPET AND
BENCH, SHOWING SOCKETS FOR WOODEN COLUMNS.

(By permission. From tlic “Annual" of the British School at Athens.)

The lower portion of the
walls of the west front, about
6 feet high, are in two thick¬
nesses of gypsum blocks,
each 18 inches thick, with a
core of rubble and clay be¬
tween of 3 feet. They still
carry in parts the remains
of a superstructure in rubble
masonry and clay mortar,
which shows that an upper
storey existed consisting
either of lofty halls or of two
floors with staircases of
wood.

The only other hall which
it is necessary here to de¬
scribe is that which Dr.

Evans calls “ the throne
room.” This was one of the
first important discoveries
made in igoo. Through
four doorways facing the
central court one descends
five steps to an ante-room, and thence through
two doorways on the right to a room measuring
20 feet long by 12 feet 6 inches wide, in the centre
of which, against the wall on the right hand side,
was a stone seat with back to it of very ori¬
ginal design.0 On the same side of the room and
returning at the end is a stone bench. The great

* A cast of the same was in the Winter Exhibition of the
Royal Academy.

megaron in the palace at Phaestos is called the
throne room, and the much larger size of the
megaron here would incline 11s to think that
Dr. Evans’ “ throne room ” was more probably
used for cabinet councils. A room 20 feet long
would not accommodate more than twelve coun¬
cillors seated, with the Prime Minister presiding
on his chair of state. In front of the throne
(Fig. 5) is an open court or well-hole, the floor
of which is sunk about 2 feet below the level of
the throne room, and is approached by steps. It
is not deep enough for a bath, and as there is
no outlet drain for the water must have been
filled and emptied by slave labour. It may, as
Dr. Evans suggested, have had fish in it. This
court for light was divided from the throne room
by a low wall (Fig. 4) with three columns in timber,
the sockets of which were sunk into a stone bench
on which either the secretary or notaries of the
council might have sat. Beyond the throne room
was a small room in which was found a pedestal
lamp showing how it was lighted.

The communications between the west and east
blocks of the palace have not yet been ascertained
either at the south or north end of the central
court. P'rom the thickness of the walls we may
assume that buildings in one or two storeys were
carried across the north entrance.

FIG. 5. — THE THRONE.

(To be continued.)

R. Phene Spiers.

The Editorial Committee is indebted to the Council of The British School at Athens for the use of several illustrations.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
review, June,
I903, VOLUME XIII.
NO. 79-

THE GUILDHALL. FROM A DRAWING
BY MUIRHEAD BONE.

Orvieto Cathedral

In the thirteenth century, in the great age
of the communes, Guelph Orvieto, like Ghibelline
Siena, broke the lawless tyranny that had checked
her commercial expansion, the tyranny of the
feudal lords whose castles girdled her contado ; like
Siena, too, she became justly proud of the position
she had won as a free commune, and sought to
give concrete expression to the two strongest im¬
pulses that can possess a people, religion and
patriotism.

Orvieto was not so large, so rich, nor so pro¬
gressive as Siena ; it was not until the year 1290
that Pope Nicholas IV. laid the first stone of her
new Duomo. But although begun nearly half a
century later than the great cathedral of her
neighbour, and at a time when the influence of
northern art was beginning to be felt in every part
of the peninsula, the Duomo of Orvieto is even
less Gothic than that of “ the Virgin’s city.” The
reason is that Orvieto cathedral was built under
the influence of the most conservative of all
Italian schools of architecture, the Roman. “ The
basilicas of Rome,” says Bryce, “ beautiful in them¬
selves, and hallowed as well by antiquity as by
religious feeling, enthralled the invention of the
Roman architect.” * Tradition relates that the
architect of Orvieto cathedral took as his model
the favourite church of the papal patron of the
nascent Duomo, S. Maria Maggiore. At any rate,
like S. Maria Maggiore, the Duomo of Orvieto
was a basilica without transepts, with a large apse
or tribune at the east end. The arcades of the
nave are composed of round arches carried on
round piers, which, although built in courses,
merely serve the purpose of columns. Above the
arcade is a heavy projecting cornice, supporting a
gallery. The high clerestory is lit by pointed
windows, the only parts of the original building
which were at all Gothic in character. A peculiar
feature of the church was the seven small semi-

* Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, London: Macmillan, i8go,
p. 291.

circular apses on each of its sides, of which five in
each aisle now remain.

It is not known who was the first architect of
Orvieto cathedral. The Commendatore Luigi
Fumi,° the learned historian of the Duomo, holds
that the design for the church, as well as one of
the two existing designs for the facade, was made
by Arnolfo di Cambio, when, in the year 1282, he
visited Orvieto to execute the monument of
Cardinal de Braye. The Commendatore surmises
that the Operai of Orvieto, finding a renowned
architect at work in their city, asked him to
furnish them with designs for their projected
cathedral. Although the onus probandi of a
theory of this kind rests upon its propounders,
Commendatore Fumi has little to say in its favour.
As, however, the weight of his name has given it
importance, it may be well to summarise the
reasons why it cannot be entertained.

First of all, it is impossible to bring any docu¬
mentary evidence in support of it. It is more
than doubtful whether Arnolfo Fiorentino, Niccola
Pisano’s pupil and the sculptor of the tabernacle
of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, the Arnolfo who visited
Orvieto in 1282, was identical with Arnolfo di
Cambio the great architect. Professor Frey, who
first promulgated the theory of the two Arnolfo’s,!
has since strengthened it, and has defended it, I
think, successfully against the criticisms of De
Rossi. t But if we admit for the sake of argu¬
ment that Arnolfo Fiorentino and Arnolfo di
Cambio were one and the same person, Signor
Fumi’s case is not much strengthened by that
admission, for it is certain that in the year 1282
Arnolfo had not yet won fame as an architect. In
fact there is no evidence to show that he had yet
been employed in any architectural undertaking
whatsoever. All the buildings that he is known
to have planned belong to a much later date.
What ground is there, then, for Signor Fumi’s
theory that because Arnolfo was a renowned
architect, he was asked by the authorities at
Orvieto to furnish a design for their projected
cathedral ? Not only cannot the distinguished
archivist produce one piece of documentary evi¬
dence to support such a theory : he cannot show
that Arnolfo ever visited Orvieto after completing
the De Braye monument, or that he was ever

* Fumi, II Duomo d' Orvieto e i suoi restauri, Rome, 1891, pp. 5,
6, 8. It is with great reluctance that I differ from the Comm.
Fumi, whose monumental work on the cathedral of Orvieto is,
perhaps, the best monograph on an Italian cathedral that has
yet seen the light.

f Frey, La Loggia de' Lanzi, Berlin, 1885, pp. 82 and seq.

+ Frey, Arnolfo di Cambio architetto £ da identificare collo scultore
Arnolfo fiorentino ? In the Miscellanea Storica della Valdelsa, anno i.,
is.se, 2, pages 86-90.

VOL. XIII. — Q 2

Orvieto Cathedra i

201

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL, FROM THE NORTH-WEST

Orvieto Cathedral.

consulted in any capacity by the Operai of the
Duomo.

Secondly, it is highly improbable, on the face of
it, that the same artist, in the same year, and for
the same building, would make two designs so
absolutely inharmonious as the design of the
Orvieto cathedral and the earlier of the two
existing designs for its fagade. The cathedral of
Orvieto was, as we have already seen, almost en¬
tirely romanesque in style ; the first of the designs
for the fagade with its very acute gables and pin¬
nacles is aggressively Gothic.

Thirdly, admitting again for the sake of argu¬
ment that Arnolfo Fiorentino and Arnolfo di
Cambio were the same person, there is no work of
of this artist that resembles in the slightest degree
either the original nave, or the earlier of the two
designs for the fagade. The only facade, if any, by
Arnolfo di Cambio of which anything is known, is
the old fagade of S. Maria del Fiore at Florence, of
which there is a representation in one of Poccetti’s
frescoes at San Marco. Dr. Nardini* contends
that the facade there depicted was built in accord¬
ance with Arnolfo’s original design, which was not
altered, he maintains, in any important particular
by Giotto or any other architect of the Duomo.
This fagade reveals to us Arnolfo as a timid and
tentative follower of the new movement in art. It
shows us that he was still largely under the influ¬
ence of his early teachers. Is it conceivable that
the artist who was ultra-gothic in 1282, after a
lapse of twelve or thirteen years, during which he
had been surrounded by Gothic influences, showed
himself a novice in the style which he had formerly
wielded as a master ? Nor if we look at the only
existing works of this period designed by Arnolfo,
that is to say the De Bray monument and the
tabernacle of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, can we find
anything that supports Signor Fumi’s theory.

Fourthly, as regards the facade, there are no
grounds for believing that it was begun until the
year 1310, when Lorenzo del Maitano was sum¬
moned from Siena. Richer towns than Orvieto
often left the facade of their cathedral unfinished
for a long period. We know that the work upon
the Duomo of Orvieto was often delayed for want
of money. Some authorities have held that the
lower portion of the fagade was already begun in
1307, because in that year a prohibition was
issued which forbade ball-games and archery
practice in the neighbourhood of the church, in
consequence of damage that had been done to
the external sculpture and to the windows. But
the actual wording of the prohibition clearly
discourages such an inference, and tends to show

* See Nardini, Lorenzo del Maitano e la facciata del Duomo
d' Orvieto, estratto dall' Archivio Storico dell’ Arte, anno iv., fasc. v.,
Rome, 1891, page 11.

205

that it was the lateral doors and windows of the
edifice that had suffered injury.0

It cannot be proved, then, that Arnolfo di
Cambio designed any portion of the Duomo.
Nor have we any documentary evidence to show
who was its original architect. But evidence of
style leads us to suppose that he was some
mediocre master of the conservative Roman school.
After all, the question is not of very great import¬
ance. For, apart from its fagade, and those of
its internal decorations that belong to a later age,
the cathedral of Orvieto is an uninteresting
building, and does not occupy any important place
in the history of architecture. The fagade,
however, although for the most part a mere
screen or frontispiece, like the majority of elabo¬
rate Italian fagades, is one of the most beautiful
in Europe.

Its author, Lorenzo del Maitano, was born in
Siena about the year 1275. His father, Vitale,
was a sculptor; and it is probable that Lorenzo
himself first followed that art. While the future
architect of the Orvieto fagade was a youth,
Giovanni Pisano was at work in Siena; and that
great artist seems to have influenced the young
Maitano as he influenced all the other sculptors
of the school of Siena, a school which was destined
to become the most productive in Italy.

It was in September 1310 that Maitano was
elected capo-maestro of the Duomo of Orvieto. In
his agreement t with the commune it is specially
provided that he shall repair the cathedral, which
threatened to become a ruin, and shall provide it
with a fagade. How it was that the new Duomo
was already in so desperate a condition, it is not
difficult to conjecture. Italian architects were
always deficient in construction. Shortly after
the original church had been completed, except
for its fagade, the clergy of the cathedral found
that they had not sufficient space for the proper
performance of the great offices of the Church.
It was decided to add a transept to the cathedral.
This addition was badly made ; and the ill-con¬
structed church, after being thus tampered with,
soon began to show signs of dissolution. It was
then that Maitano was summoned from Siena to
restore and buttress its cracking walls, and to
build its fagade.

For a somewhat inferior missal, the Sienese
artist designed a glorious illuminated frontispiece.
His first designs, the work of a pioneer of the
Gothic style, were tentative. He made at least
three drawings for the fagade, of which the two

* Fumi, op. cit., 91, 92, also p. 439, and seq.
f Arch di Stato, Orvieto, Deliberazioni del comune dal 1310-1312,
carta 67 tergo. See also Milanesi, Documenti per la Storia dell’
Arte Senese, i., 172, 173.

206

Orvieto Cathedral.

W _ I . _ l . II _ _

ONE OF THE ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS FOR THE FAQ AD E OF
ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. BY LORENZO DEL MAITANO.

(From a photograph specially taken for and presented to The Architectural Review by the Commune of Orvuto.)

~7~

Orvieto Ca th edra l .

207

% M, » ■ i Mj - •

r ? Hi

.0 itgip: :

I ■ '

i i

: , • i

sTU

! 1
3$

'0 f

7; i

ONE OF THE ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS FOR THE FACADE OF
ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. BY LORENZO DEL MAITANO.

(From a photograph specially taken for and presented to The Architectural Review by the Commune of Orvieto.)

208

Orvieto Cathedral .

ultimately rejected remain to us.° The first of
these, the one attributed by Signor Fumi to
Arnolfo di Cambio, shows us a single-gabled
facade. On one of its pilasters we see sketched
the kind of surface ornament that ultimately
adorned the building. For the rest the design is
aggressively Gothic. The Italian, after the man¬
ner of converts, delights in extremes. His gables
and pinnacles, with their elaborate cusps and
hnials, are more acute than those of the masters
he imitated. Subsequently, as French influences

* I am indebted to the Commune of Orvieto, to the Opera del
Duomo of that city, and, more especially to the President of the
Opera, the Comm. C. Franci, for the photographs of the designs
of the facade, which were specially taken for this article.

GENERAL VIEW OF CARVINGS ON LEFT-HAND
CENTRE PIER, THE FACADE.

acquired more and more power over him, he
decided to construct, for the first time in Italy,
a fa9ade with three gables. But whilst in ap¬
pearance, and in some measure in construction,
this fa9ade was, as Dr. Nardini says, terribilmente
ogivale, it was in one respect thoroughly Italian,
unlike the fa9ades of the great French cathedrals
it imitated ; it was for the most part a mere fron¬
tispiece, although more intimately related to the
structure of which it forms a part, than is the
fa9ade of the Duomo of Siena. Its gables rise
high above the roof of the church ; and many
of its most pronounced features have little or no
organic connection with the building behind it.

The reliefs on the pilasters on either side of

ORVIETO. GENERAL VIEW OF CARVINGS ON
RIGHT-HAND CENTRE PIER, THE FAqADE.

Or vie to Cathedral .

209

ORVIETO. GENERAL VIEW OF CARVINGS ON QRVIETO. GENERAL VIEW OF CARVINGS ON

LEFT^ HAND PIER, THE FACADE. RIGHT-HAND PIER, THE FACADE.

2 I O

Orvieto Cathedral.

2 l I

each of the doorways form the most beautiful
part of the surface ornament with which this
facade is covered, and they are the portions of
the decoration that have suffered least from the
drastic restoration which the facade has expe¬
rienced. These reliefs, I hold, were executed
whilst Lorenzo del Maitano was capo-maestro of
the Duomo, and for the most part by himself and
his assistants.

An accomplished critic, M. Reymond,* has re¬
cently sought to prove that Drs. Bode and Burck-
hardt have erred in attributing these reliefs to
Sienese sculptors. His argument, however, is of
little value, as it is based upon an assumption which
is now proved to be erroneous. He holds that the
existing facade of Siena cathedral was erected
under the supervision of Giovanni Pisano in the
latter part of the thirteenth century. He goes to
that facade for evidence as to the character of the
achievement of the Sienese school of sculpture in
that age, and maintains that the sculptors of Siena,
responding to the demand for statues on the new
Gothic fapade of their cathedral, had entirely for¬
saken the art of low-relief, and had devoted
themselves to figure sculpture. As it has now
been clearly proved that the existing facade of

* Reymond, La Sculpture Florentine, Florence, 1897, vol. i,
pp. 132-137.

Siena cathedral was not built until after the year
1370, all the conclusions that M. Reymond bases
upon the supposition that it was erected a cen¬
tury earlier fall to the ground.*

It is possible to show, too, by more direct argu¬
ment that the French critic's conclusions are
erroneous. Like their master and inspirer,
Giovanni Pisano, all the members of the large
Sienese school of sculpture that left examples of
its handy work in every great town in Italy in the
first half of the fourteenth century, practised the
art of making bas-reliefs. Witness the reliefs of
Agostino di Giovanni and Agnolo di Ventura at
Arezzo, of Tino di Camaino at Naples and at
Florence, of Cellino di Nese at Pisa and Pistoia.
Witness Goro di Gregorio’s remarkable reliefs
representing the miracles of S. Cerbone in the
cathedral of Massa Marittima, works which have
entirely escaped the notice of M. Reymond and
other writers upon Tuscan sculpture. f It is a
fact capable of mathematical demonstration that,
excluding the reliefs on the pilasters of Orvieto

* I have dealt with M. Reymond’s arguments in my recently
published History of Siena (Murray, 1902). But since writing
that book I have been able to strengthen in some important
particulars the case for the Sienese authorship of these reliefs.

f The area of S. Cerbone bears an inscription which states
that it was made by Goro di Gregorio, of Siena, in 1324. The
inscription is of the same date as the area itself.

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. THE FACADE. DETAIL. ADAM AND EVE IN PARADISE.

2 I 2

Orvieto Cathedral.

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. THE FACADE. DETAIL.
THE NATIVITY. BY A SIENESE FOLLOWER
OF GIOVANNI PISANO.

Cathedral, the Sienese sculptors, in the period
13x0 to 1340, carved more bas-reliefs than all the
other sculptors of Tuscan)/ put together.

M. Reymond argues somewhat naively that
delicate work of this kind would not have been
executed at so early a period in the history of the
facade as that of Lorenzo del Maitano’s overseer-
ship. To advance such an argument is to display
ignorance of the history of Italian facades. The
most beautiful, the most delicately-modelled reliefs
that are to be found in such a position, around the
doorways of a great church — I refer to the reliefs
jacopo della Quercia moulded for the central por¬
tal of San Petronio at Bologna — were finished
before any other work upon the fagade was taken
in hand. The west front of the great Bolognese
church has remained unfinished until this day.
The history of the fagade of San Petronio is not
an isolated case. It was customary in Italy to
complete first the central doorway of the fagade.

But it is not enough, it may be urged, for those
of us who believe that Maitano and his pupils
executed reliefs at Orvieto to prove that the art of
sculpturing in low relief was largely practised by
the Sienese, and that in constructing a fagade it
was customary amongst Italian architects to begin
with decoration of the central portal. In order to
prove our case we must show that there are
definite grounds for connecting these reliefs with
the name of Maitano. I will summarise, then,
very briefly, my reasons for maintaining that they
were executed in part by him, in part under his
supervision

First of all there are good grounds for believing
that the lower part of the fagade was completed
during Maitnno’s tenure of the position of archi¬
tect of the Duomo. It is true that the documents
relating to the history of the fagade during the
first eleven years that he held office, that is to say,

from 1310 to 1321, have disappeared. But the
existing documents, which belong to the following
period, that is to say, to the period which began
in the year 1321, and closed with Maitano’s death
in 1330, suffice to show that during those years
the lower part of the fagade was completed ; whilst
the documents relating to the period following
Maitano’s death tend to prove that the lower
story was then finished, and that the arcade above
it was in process of construction.

Secondly, we know that it was Maitano’s own
idea that the fagade should be decorated with
reliefs similar to those which now adorn it ; for
such reliefs are clearly indicated in one of his
tentative designs for it.

Thirdly, it is certain that Lorenzo del Maitano
and his assistant Niccola Nuti practised the art
of sculpture. If they resembled at all the other
Sienese followers of Giovanni Pisano they must
have practised largely the art of sculpturing bas-
reliefs.*

Fourthly, the terms of Maitano’s agreement
with the Commune of Orvieto prove that one of

* The Comm.Fumi admit! that Lorenzo del Maitano executed
some of the reliefs. See Fumi, op. cit., p. 92.

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. THE FACADE. DETAIL.

(A) THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

(B) THE VISITATION.

BY A SIENESE FOLLOWER OF GIOVANNI PISANO.

Orvieto Cathedral.

213

the objects of the Orvietans in engaging the
Sienese master was that he might carve bas-reliefs
for the facade of their cathedral ; for in that
document it is expressly stipulated that he shall
be allowed to maintain what pupils he wished at
the expense of the Opera del Duomo ad designan-
dum, figuvandum et faciendum lapides for the facade.
Now the phrase figurare lapides is the phrase which
in documents of the period is always used to signify
the making of bas-reliefs. If the writer is speaking
of foliations or other similar ornament, he does
not use the verb figurare, but the word fogliare.
In the Latin of the period the word figura always
means a statue. The phrase for “To make
statues ” is not, however, figurare lapides, but
facere figuras. The phrase figurare lapides is
almost invariably used to indicate the carving of
bas-reliefs composed of figures of men or beasts.*

* Nardini, Lorenzo del Maitano e la facciata del Duomo d’ Orvieto ;
estratto dall' Archivio storico dell' Arte, anno iv.,fasc. v. Rome, 1891,
pp. 14, 15.

I hold therefore that one of the objects of the
Commune in engaging Maitano was that he might
make, and superintend the making of, reliefs. In
his first tentative design for the facade, as we have
already seen, he sketched reliefs on one of the
pilasters similar in general design to those which
adorned the completed work.*

The conclusions that we have based upon the
evidence of documents and of the original designs
are, at least, not contradicted by such scanty evi¬
dence as stilkritik affords as to the authorship of
these reliefs. Whilst there are no other existing
bas-reliefs by Lorenzo del Maitano and Niccola Nuti
with which we can compare these of Orvieto, we
are justified in concluding that any works, they
executed would show strong traces of the influence

* I believe that the reliefs were completed in 1321. There is
evidence to show that in that year some of them were put in
their places. (Arch di Stato, Orvieto A rch dell' opera del Duomo,
Cam. i., 1321, Aprile 28, Maggio 5, c. 93, 96.) And it was in 1321
that Maitano set up the fabbrica of mosaic.

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. THE FACADE. DETAIL. THE RESURRECTION.

2 1 4

Orvieto Cathedral .

of that master whose personality dominated Sienese
art in the closing decades of the thirteenth cen¬
tury — I mean Giovanni Pisano.'"' We shall expect
to find in them, too, evidences of the influence of
Giovanni’s great father, Niccola, whose reliefs on
the pulpit of Siena were the most important works
in sculpture then existing in their native town.
And this is just what we discover in the Orvieto
reliefs. The scenes on the northernmost pilaster
recall the manner of Andrea da Pontedera ; and
the reliefs of the central and southern pilasters
are evidently, as Crowe and Cavalcaselle held, by
other followers of the great Pisan masters.

But whilst I agree with M. Reymond and the
Commendatore Luigi Fumi that Andrea Pisano
executed some of the reliefs on the northernmost
pilaster, I cannot accept their conclusion that they
were made in the middle of the century during the
time when Andrea was capo-maestro of the Duomo.
I see no reason for disbelieving that all these re¬
liefs were executed during Lorenzo del Maitano’s
long tenure of the position of capo-macstro.

First of all, as I have already shown, there are
documentary reasons for believing that the lower

* Ruskin gives the reliefs on the facade to Giovanni Pisano.
He discusses the facade of Orvieto in Lecture VII., “Marble
Rampant," in Val d' Arno, and in the appendix to that book.

part of the fagade was completed before the year
1321, and there is no evidence of any kind which
encourages the view that Andrea da Pontedera or
any other sculptor executed reliefs on the pilasters
of the fagade after that date. Secondly, the re¬
liefs on this northern pilaster which reveal the
hand of Andrea are very much less mature than the
reliefs on the bronze doors Andrea made for the
Florence Baptistery in the year 1330. In the
years 1347 and 1348, when Andrea held office at
Orvieto, he was a very old man tottering on the
verge of the grave. As capo-maestro he probably
contented himself with superintending the work
of others, giving the opcrai the benefit of his long
artistic experience, but doing little with his own
hand. All the evidence we have points to the
fact that Andrea twice visited Orvieto, and that
these reliefs of the northernmost pilaster were
executed before the year 1321 under Lorenzo del
Maitano’s supervision, if they were not designed
by him, after the decorations of the two central
pilasters had been finished.

In addition to Niccola Nuti and Lorenzo's son
Vitale, another Sienese sculptor, Goro di Gregorio,
worked upon the reliefs of the fagade. The study
of his area of S, Cerbone at Massa Marittima has
led me to conclude that some of the scenes to the

ORVIETO CATHEDRAL. THE FAQ AD E. DETAIL. THE INFERNO.

Orvieto Ca th edra l .

2 1 5

ORVILTO CATHEDRAL. THE INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST.

left of the central portal are from the hand of this
unrecognised genius.

It may be urged that Lorenzo del Maitano
cannot have been as great a sculptor as is claimed,
for, if he had been, there would be remains of
other important works undertaken by him. To
the archivist no argument could be more fallacious
than this. He knows well that of several of the

great Sienese and Florentine artists of the Trecento,
men who in their own day were regarded as equal
in power and achievement to the greatest of their
contemporaries, not one single work can be iden¬
tified. Where, for instance, are the works of two
of the most distinguished masters of the very
school of sculpture to which Maitano belonged ?
Where are the works in sculpture of Lando di

2 I 0

Orvieto Ca th edra /.

Pietro and Ramo di Paganello ? And of Agostino
di Giovanni and Agnolo di Ventura have we more
than a fragment of one authentic sculptured work ?
Maitano died in middle life. The twenty best
years of his career were passed at Orvieto, where
he was actively employed as chief architect. His
early works, like those of Andrea da Pontedera,
and other great artists of that period, have dis¬
appeared. It Andrea had died when he was fifty-
five years old, it would have been impossible to
prove that any existing work was by his hand.

No argument can be drawn from Vasari’s silence
as to Maitano and his achievement. The capo-
maestro of Orvieto Cathedral was not the only
distinguished artist whom the Aretine biographer
ignored. Nay, are there not great Florentines,
even, whom he has failed to take note of? What
Florentine architect of the middle of the Trecento
more deserved mention than Francesco Talenti,
to whose genius the campanile called Giotto's and
the Florentine cathedral owe so much ? But
Talenti finds no place in Vasari’s pages.

The reliefs on the pilasters of the fapade of
Orvieto Cathedral were, I maintain, executed in
the period 1310 to 1321, in part by Lorenzo del
Maitano, in part under his supervision. They
belong to the golden age of the art of Siena, to
the age of Duccio and Simone Martini, to the age
of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, to the age of
the architects of the great unfinished cathedral.
Maitano was an artistic kinsman of Simone.
Like Simone, he owed a great deal to the influ¬
ence of Giovanni Pisano. Like Simone, he was a
great designer. He had, too, something of that
painter’s marvellous grace of line, something of
his devotion to a hieratic sumptuousness, some¬
thing of his love of brilliant colour, as well as
something of his extraordinary fineness — we might
almost say fastidiousness — of technique. Except¬
ing the works of Jacopo della Quercia, the reliefs
of Orvieto were the greatest achievement of the
Sienese school of sculpture.0

Maitano was not only an architect and a sculp¬
tor, he also designed mosaics for the fa9ade ;
collecting together capable artists he set up a
fabbrica of mosaic in Orvieto in the year 1321.
And the early mosaic pictures on the lower part
of the facade were executed by him or under his
supervision. This work was continued by his son
Vitale, by Andrea Orcagna, and by other great
artists. But of the early mosaics that adorned
the facade not a vestige now remains. It was not
until the year 1570, two hundred and sixty years
after Maitano had begun the work that the fa9ade

* “ Here in the facade of Orvieto, you have not only perfect
Gothic in the sentiment of Scripture history, but such luxurious
ivy ornamentation as you cannot afterwards match for two
hundred years." — Ruskin, op. cit., p. 134.

was completed. Only one important alteration
was made in the original design, and that was the
work of another Sienese, Antonio Federighi, in
the middle of the fifteenth century. Already in
1417, more than thirty years before Federighi took
office, proposals had been made for a change in
the design. Finally, in the year 1450, Isaia da
Pisa had been commissioned to make a new design
for the uppermost story of the fa9ade. The
design this artist provided was the cause of great
controversy, a controversy not settled until after
Federighi became capo-maestro in the year 1451.
Federighi finally decided to raise the altitude of
the central gable of the fa9ade by inserting a row
of niches above the circular window similar to
those Maitano had placed on each side of it. He
also increased the height of the pinnacles which
flanked the central gable. Thus he gave the
fa9ade a more imposing appearance than it would
have presented had Maitano's final design been
carried out. For the rest, the fa9ade to-day
differs in no very important particular from that
designed in the fourteenth century.

The other additions to the original cathedral
possess but little architectural interest. The
Cappella del Corporale, the chapel built as the
shrine of a blood-stained corporal, a relic of the
Mass of Bolsena, was erected in the year 1330.
In it, as in the festival of the Corpus Domini, the
Catholic Church commemorates Heaven’s wit¬
nessing to the truth of her central Mystery. For
the sacred relic Ugolino di Maestro Vieri — one of
that company of great goldsmiths of Siena who,
in the fourteenth century, made crowns for em¬
perors and kings, golden roses and chalices for
popes, and beautiful vessels for the great Italian
cathedrals — executed a reliquary which is one of
the finest existing examples of Italian goldsmith
work of the Middle Ages.

The large chapel on the south. side of the church
opposite the Cappella del Corporale is still known
as the Cappella Nuova. It was ordained by the
Commune in 1397, but it was not finished until
the year 1444. The frescoes which cover its walls
and its vaulted roof were begun three years later
by Fra Angelico, and were completed by Luca
Signorelli in the early years of the sixteenth
century.

Notwithstanding the artistic importance of the
frescoes which adorn this chapel, in its internal
decoration as in its structure, the cathedral of
Orvieto is inferior to that of Siena; but as long
as men love beautiful things they wall make pil¬
grimage to the Umbrian town to see Lorenzo del
Maitano’s fa9ade and the diversely-beautiful,
strangely-consorted frescoes of the Artist-Saint
and Michael Angelo’s precursor.

R. Langton Douglas.

Architectural Education.

II. — Great Britain.

THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
DAY SCHOOL.

By Arthur T. Bolton.

The Architectural Association occu¬
pies an unique position in architectural education,
being a professional society originated some fifty
years ago for the purpose of mutual teaching. It
differs therefore in nature from an endowed col¬
lege, both in being self-supporting and also in
being directed entirely by architects on an ex¬
tremely popular basis, that is to say there is
only one class in the membership, so that the
youngest beginner, just joined, has equal rights
with grey beards who can recall the time when
the Architectural Association was non-existent.
Essentially a society of young men, if is managed
by a committee constantly recruited from those
who have in any way distinguished themselves
or attracted the favourable consideration, and
consequent votes, of their fellow-members.

As, however, the older men make it a point of
honour to retain their membership long after
they have ceased to derive any personal benefit
from their subscription, so there is no society of
young men that could be more solicitous to con¬
sult the old heads in every proposed step that is
considered to be in any way important. It fol¬
lows, therefore, that the Architectural Association
commands in a remarkable degree the confidence
of architects as a body, and also that its teaching
will be of a broad character representative of all
sides of the profession as a whole.

This preliminary statement is necessary because
the work of the Architectural Association is not
to be judged from the basis of a merely ideal cur¬
riculum, and also because both its characteristics
and success are derived from this unique position.

It does not rest with the writer to describe the
multifarious activities of the Architectural Asso¬
ciation, nor to detail the work of the evening
school, which will indeed be referred to only in so
far as it is related to the work of the day school
student, subsequent to the completion of his first
year’s course.

The Architectural Association Day School, now
fully established, meets the long-felt need for a
training ground, where the boy straight from a
public school can acquire such indispensable pre-

VOL. XIII. — R

liminary knowledge, of a technical character, as
will enable him to profit by the time spent under
articles as a pupil in an architect's office.

It would be out of place here to dwell on the
importance of pupilage — it may be taken as the
accepted system — and it is only necessary to state
that the Architectural Association Day School is
a preparation for it and not a substitute.

There is no hard and fast limit of age for join¬
ing the day school, but 16 is the very earliest at
which a boy should leave his school, and 17 or
18 is much better, while those who have been at
the university will naturally be 21 or 22. The
course is annual, from October to July, and is
divided into the usual three terms. Students can,
and do, join and leave at the beginning of any
term, completing their year’s course accordingly ;
but to join in October is the most convenient
arrangement. On completing the first year's
course the student enters on his pupilage with an
architect, and should, during this first year of his
articles, continue to attend the school for two
days in the week, following out the second year
course, which affords him systematic teaching
supplementary to the practical work of the office
in which he is engaged for the other four days of
the week. The student can delay his articles for
a vear if he desires to spend the whole of his time
working out the second year course, but the
former arrangement presents many advantages in
actual working.

The above outline shows the non-academical
character of the scheme, also how it works in with
every-day architectural practice. Architects send
their pupils to the school for this preliminary
training, and there is a combination of “ actual ”
and what is quaintly designated “theoretical”
work.

Let us now take the first year’s course and show
what the intending architect’s pupil is taught as a
basis for his subsequent studies. The work can
be roughly divided into a History and Construc¬
tion side, although the cross connections are care¬
fully brought out in every possible way. Similarly
the teaching can be separated into lectures and
studio work, though here again these are inter¬
dependent.

In the studio or drawing work the chief aim is
thoroughly to ground the student as a good

2 I 8

A rchitectural Education.

geometrical draughtsman, able to deal with the
daily work of an architect's office. This naturally
involves freehand work as well, and the elementary
setting up of perspectives is given as an aid to
out-of-door sketching. The method of survey for
the measured study of old buildings is taught, by
a typical example thoroughly done, and is then
encouraged and required as vacation study.

The geometrical drawing work follows the
course of the lectures, and is, as it were, explana¬
tory of them ; thus the drawing out of the four
orders accompanies those on Greek and Roman
architecture, and their origin and meaning is thus
brought home to the student. A plan to 32nd
scale of an extensive Roman building such
as the Baths of Caracalla is a valuable ex¬
ercise, and the working out in plan and sec¬
tion of the two types of Roman Basilica, the
vaulted and the timber-roofed, leads on to the
developments of Romanesque and Gothic.

Such, in outline, is the first term’s work. In
the second the student’s time is divided between
the History and Construction drawing work. A
Byzantine and a Romanesque church are drawn
in plan section and elevation, parallel with the
lectures on the same subjects, and the study of
Gothic architecture is entered upon by drawing
out two bays of an early French vaulted refectory.

Meantime the Construction subject, an eight-
roomed cottage, is most completely set out from
the original to the scale of eight feet to one inch,
as a contract drawing, to be traced, printed, and
coloured, the half-inch details drawn out with the
full sizes complete, and the specification written
precisely in accordance with office requirements.
The lectures on Construction throughout follow
the course of the building of the subject, starting
from its requirements and proceeding to cases,
different and more elaborate, but always remaining
in touch with the actual case in which the students
are engaged.

It is possible in this way to interest the pupils
in Construction, not as a matter of theory,
but as a vital part of the subject in hand. This
Construction drawing extends through the third
term. The utility of the method to the future
pupil is obvious, it means that on entering his
office he has a certain grasp of what is going on
and of what he is wanted to do.

In this second term the instruction in measur¬
ing old work is given, and during the Easter
vacation very good independent study is obtained.

In the third, or summer term, the History
drawing carries on Gothic Architecture by the
most advanced students drawing an elaborate
tracery and vaulting subject, two bays of an
English decorated chancel in plan section and
elevation, while the others draw a similar subject

of an earlier character. Renaissance is then
drawn out, by well-known subjects such as Clare
College to Ain. scale for the earlier, and the
Banqueting House at Whitehall for the later,
two bays of the latter being worked out to jin.
scale. The Lectures follow on in all cases.

In this way the students do not simply listen to
one or more lectures on a period, to be as easily
forgotten as heard, but being simultaneously en¬
gaged on drawing out a typical specimen have the
said lecture, as it were, constantly repeated to
them, in the shape of the necessary instruction
they require in making out their drawings. A
student may learn nothing from a discourse on
vaulting, but if he has to set it up geometrically
simultaneously, he must indeed be dull if he has
not an intelligent interest in vaulting ever after.

The assistant masters, present the whole time,
give constant attention to the students, who
are strictly enjoined not to draw anything which
they do not fully comprehend. Models and pho¬
tographs are kept in use to counteract the ten¬
dency of students simply to imitate the fiat copy,
without taking the pains to realize the solid form,
of which it is the geometrical representation.

The development of intelligence, of powers of
observation, and of memory, the inculcation of
the best methods, and the insistence on serious
and continued work are the objects the staff of
the school have in view.

There is an essential difference, which cannot
be gone into here, between the work of architects
and of purely graphic artists, demanding a dif¬
ferent training to that common in Schools of
Art. It is also beneficial in the long run to
the future architect if the development of his
artistic self-consciousness is retarded, rather than
quickened, at this early stage of his career —
technical mastery which denotes the genuine
artist is to be purchased by a training beyond the
range of the brilliant amateur. It is not of much
service to the student to veil in a cloud of words
the sustained effort and real work required, and
much harm is done by injudicious treatment of
this vital matter.

It is impossible here to enter into all the minor
details to show how the whole scheme is made to
work together in all its parts as a means to the
end of giving the student a broad outline of the
History of Architecture, and of the principles of
Construction, so as to qualify him to profit to the
full by his articles ; but it may be pointed out that
no definite direction is given to his tastes; that is
left to the architect whom he adopts as his master,
and to the growth of his own individuality here¬
after. The object is to acquaint him with the
main lines, so as to counteract the bias and pre¬
judice that arises from one-sided learning.

Architectural Education.

On the completion of the first year, the student,
now an articled pupil, takes the Second Year
Course, which teaches design in the form of an
application of the work he has followed out
previously.

There is a twofold object in this; in the first
place the most vital part of an architect’s work,
the power, that is, of giving form and character to
buildings is commenced early enough to cause
the student to develop a real interest and love of
his work ; and secondly the attempt to apply what
he has thought himself to have learnt brings out
at once the weak places in his past work.

It is one thing to have drawn out a Greek
column and quite another to apply the same in a
small design of say a Doric character. The back
elevation and internal sections of objects, hitherto
mainly conceived as flat outlines, now acquire to
the student a painful interest. It is interesting to
mark the student grappling with the application of
his know ledge, and the advantage to him of making
his first essays in design along the main lines of
historical development, will, I think, be denied
only by the most thorough-going of artistic revo¬
lutionaries.

For lectures the Second-year student has at
once thrown open to him, gratis, all that are
given in Division I. of the Evening School of the
Architectural Association, and should any student
have so advanced himself, he can attend the
lectures in Division II. at half fees.

All the students, First and Second years, attend
the visits of the Day School to buildings, ancient
and in progress, to museums and to workshops,
all of which serve to bring them in touch with the
realities of their work. They thus have opportuni¬
ties of acquainting themselves with materials and
methods of work in a manner calculated to interest
them in those subjects.

The association together of these beginners,
their use of the Architectural Association pre¬
mises, Common Room and Library, together with
the facilities for attending the meetings and social
gatherings of the Architectural Association, all
serve to throw them, as it were, into the full
current of the profession, and enable them to
realize its characteristics and aims before they
have advanced so far that retreat is difficult, if
not impossible.

It will be seen, then, that the boy from school
entering the Architectural Association Day School
should become in two years a hard-working archi¬
tectural student, well grounded in the outlines of
his profession, and able to avail himself for his
future advancement, of all the facilities which for
fifty years, with a constantly increasing develop¬
ment, the Architectural Association has offered to
architectural aspirants.

2 I 9

THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
EVENING SCHOOL.

By William G. B. Lewis.

The instruction given in the evening school
conducted by the Architectural Association is
divided into three sections : i. Lectures ; 2. Studio
or drawing school ; 3. Classes for Sketching and
Measuring, Water-colour, Modelling and Design.

1. The Lectures are given with a view to pre¬
paring the student for the R.I.B.A. Examinations,
and are mostly attended with that object, and the
ground covered is such as to give the student a
sufficient knowledge of a sound character to
enable him to pass the examination in the subject
taught. Each lecture is of one hour’s duration,
followed by an hour’s class work, during which
the instruction is of an informal character, and
the accuracy of the notes and sketches made by
the student is checked by the lecturer. Home
work is set in connection with the lectures, and
the students are encouraged to study the subject
in a thorough manner and to take an interest in
it for its own sake apart from any ulterior object
to be attained. Prizes are awarded for the home
work done, but as a rule the competition for them
is very limited, as the standard is so high that
but few have the time or energy to keep up to
it throughout the whole course.

Lectures are given on the following subjects : —
Division I .

No. of
Lectures

Greek and Roman Architecture, and

Ornament . . . . 13

English Architecture to a.d. 1500 . 16

Mediaeval and Renaissance in Europe . 12

Plane and Solid Geometry ... 8

Elementary Physics as applicable to

Building Construction . . 14

Elementary Building Construction . 16

Division II.

Materials, their nature and application 15
Construction (Advanced) . . .10

Hygiene, Drainage, Water Supply,
Ventilation, Lighting, and Heat¬
ing . . . . . .12

Professional Practice .... 6

The lectures on the art side cover the history
of the Classic, Mediaeval, and Renaissance styles
in Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and
England, the growth, development, and decadence
of each style. The most important buildings][are
described and illustrated by diagrams or lantern

r 2

220

A rch i tectu ra l Id due a tion .

views : the planning', arrangement, construction,
materials, and workmanship explained. The cha¬
racteristic features, mouldings, sculpture, and
general details, are also described and illustrated.

The lectures on building construction and ma¬
terials describe in detail the sources of supply, the
qualities and defects of the materials used by the
different trades, and the methods of application,
the form and dimensions suitable for different pur¬
poses, and various classes of buildings in which
they are used.

Isometric projection and sciography are in¬
cluded in the geometry lectures. The latter is
very little used by English students, and it is pro¬
bable that the lack of appreciation of the amount
of light and shade required to produce a good
effect in a building is due to the small amount of
attention given to the study of sciography.

The legal position of the architect, the London
Building Act, valuation, dilapidations, light and
air, contracts, agreements, specifications, and
approximate estimates, are dealt with in lectures
on professional practice, and sanitary legislation
in those on hygiene.

Under “extra subjects ” are included lectures
on —

No. of
Lectures.

Land Surveying and Levelling . . 8

Quantity Surveying and Estimates . 6

Ornament and Colour Decoration . 5

as these subjects are not set in the R.I.B.A. Ex¬
aminations.

2. The Studio. — This is held twice weekly,
from 6.30 to 10 p.m., and deals with all the
problems a draughtsman may encounter in his
daily work. Owing to the students being of
two classes — (a) pupils in London offices and ( b )
older men who have served their articles in the
country, they differ widely in the amount already
learnt and the subjects they wish to take up, so
that nearly all the instruction has to be of an
individual character, and as a student does not
spend sufficient time in the studio to attain more
than a most superficial knowledge of architecture,
the principle aim of the instruction is to en¬
courage him to cultivate his eye to see accurately
and to induce him to develop his reasoning
faculties, thus setting him on the road to acquire
knowledge after he has left the studio. This is
the more important, as in most cases he has copied
without understanding and his information is
rather that of rote than of memory based upon a
comprehension of the principles and a proper
appreciation of the reasons.

All drawings (including those of the Orders)
prepared in the Studio must as far as possible

conform to one of the scales in general use in an
office, viz. : —

Eighth of an inch to a foot for general
drawings.

Half an inch to a foot for general details.

Inch to a foot for small subjects and finer
work, such as furniture, decoration, etc.

Full size for mouldings, carving, and such
parts as are usually drawn full size for
the workman.

The object is to accustom the eye to the
sizes of various parts and details and to enable
comparisons to be made, as it is most important
that a beginner should understand the relative
sizes of different buildings and the parts of which
they are composed. This is of assistance in
enabling him to judge scale and proportion in
his work.

The work of the studio consists of —

(a) Drawing examples of architecture — Greek,

Roman, and Gothic.

( b ) Drawing ornament from the cast.

Perspective, and ./Esthetics.

(d) Construction.

(e) Design of buildings and parts of buildings.

(/) Time sketches.

(a) When the subject drawn is a part of a
building a small key elevation and plan are drawn
on the same sheet to show its relation to the
whole design. In cases where a cast of the orna¬
ment is in the Studio, the student is encouraged
to make a full size measured drawing of it, for
which he will have greater advantages when the
schools have been moved to Westminster, and the
casts of the Royal Architectural Museum are
available in the same building.

In making the drawings attention is directed to
the proportions of one part to another and to the
disposition of the ornaments and mouldings.

( b ) In drawing ornament the effect produced
and how it is obtained is pointed out, and atten¬
tion is drawn to any particular points, either in
design or execution, that render it suitable for
its position or the material in which it is executed,
the way in which unity is secured by the treat¬
ment of detail, and the method of obtaining sym¬
metry without absolute repetition, and freedom
and vigour without loss of refinement. On comple¬
tion of the drawing the student is asked to make
a small scale sketch of the same subject as a study
in “ shorthand.”

(c) Seven lectures and demonstrations are
given in perspective, the aim being to give the
student a sound geometrical knowledge of the
subject while teaching him the easiest methods of

A rch it e ctura l Ed uca tion .

22 r

putting buildings into perspective, and by means
of illustrations and photographs he is shown
the advantage of a thorough knowledge of the
subject in respect to design.

The Descriptive Geometry demonstrations were
added as a preliminary course, it being found that
scarcely any of the students have even an ele¬
mentary knowledge of this subject, a deficiency
which seriously handicaps them in a proper
understanding of the connection between a draw¬
ing and the work it illustrates, so that practically
none are able to realise the grouping of a building
from a set of plans and elevations without the aid
of a set-up perspective.

The lectures on Tvsthetics, which have only
recently been started, are intended to help the
student to be more self-critical in making a
design, and include such subjects as Composition
(grouping and proportion), Form (mass and line),
Colour, and Workmanship. The aesthetic prin¬
ciples which have governed the forms of capitals
to columns and piers, how they were developed
and changed with the changing style, and their
relation to surrounding work and suitability to
their position have been pointed out to show that
similar principles should govern the design of
details.

id) Examples of construction are drawn from
copies, but students are in all cases recommended
to draw from small scale diagrams in books, adding
the jointing from larger details, as this sharpens
the intellect which mere copyism tends to blunt.

(e) In Design, subjects are set in three sections,
viz. : (i) A part of a building, generally a con¬
structive subject of a simple character, which has
to be treated architecturally ; (2) a whole building
has to be designed for a special purpose, condi¬
tions as to locality, site, materials, and in some
cases cost being stated ; (3) smaller objects, in¬
ternal fittings and decorative details which are
required to be drawn to a large scale or full size.

The first set of subjects would be taken up by
students of the first division, and those of the
second division can choose from either the second
or thiid set. In all cases they are recommended
to make a sketch design to a small scale.

(/) Time sketches are set with a view to as¬
sisting the student to form an idea quickly. The
general subject is announced, and in some cases
illustrations are exhibited for a fortnight, and
then removed. Definite particulars and condi¬
tions are only given on the evening on which the
sketch is to be made. It must be commenced
and finished in one evening, between 6 p.m. and
10 p.m., and may be in pencil, ink, or colour.

One of the greatest difficulties to be contended
with is the fact that nearly all the students come
to prepare their “testimonies of study” for the

Institute examinations, and wish to do only the
minimum amount of work which they suppose
will enable them to “scrape through.” In conse¬
quence, while the examination undoubtedly in¬
duces them to take up many subjects which they
would otherwise neglect, the drawings tend to
become mere copies instead of testimonies o:
study, and the students do not derive the benefit
they should from preparing them. As far as
possible they are compelled to do the various
drawings thoroughly, and every inducement is
used to make them real students instead of being
such only in name.

3. Classes are held in the early summer to
teach the methods to be adopted in sketching and
measuring buildings, two members of a committee
of visitors attending each meeting, which are held
at South Kensington and buildings in and around
London.

Students may also learn under a professional
water-colour painter (formerly an architect) how
to put on paper their impressions of colour and
study grouping and composition, the meetings
being indoor followed by open air ones. To pre¬
pare for this class an elementary water-colour
class is previously held indoor, enabling students
to acquire facility in handling their brush.

The modelling class is under the direction of
a well-known sculptor, and is of great assistance
in giving a knowledge of the value of projection,
and an appreciation of surface and form.

Six years ago the Design Class was resumed.
This is supervised by voluntary visitors, who
are practising architects, and attend each
monthly meeting to give the students criticisms
upon their designs. The subjects are those of
a simple nature for a lower division, and more
complex problems in design for advanced students,
corresponding in a great measure to the method
pursued in the studio, with the exception that the
student is not taught during the preparation of
the subject, but obtains a criticism when he has
finished his design. In most cases a subject is
given two meetings, the general design being
submitted at the first, and half-inch scale and full-
size details at the second. Workshop demonstra¬
tions are occasionally arranged when the practical
working of various materials are given to show
the student their limitations.

The student enjoys the following advantages in
common with other Architectural Association
members. (1) He may borrow books from the
library numbering 3,000 volumes. As any volume
may be obtained on loan, the library is probably
the finest of its kind in the kingdom. (2) A dis¬
cussion section, which was started a few years
ago to afford an opportunity for the study and

Architecture at the Royal Academy.

discussion of those subjects and difficulties which
constantly occur in actual practice. Visitors of
experience, in the subject being discussed, are in¬
vited to attend. Incidentally the power of speak¬
ing in public is thus acquired. (3) Fortnightly
meetings of the Association are held on Friday
evenings, when papers on various subjects of
interest to the profession are read and discussed.
(4) On alternate Saturday afternoons during the
spring months visits are organised to buildings in
progress in London, and he is enabled to acquire
some practical experience of the manner in which
some of our best public and private buildings are
carried out. (5) Similar visits are made in the
summer to interesting buildings in the home
counties. (6) The excursion, which usually takes
place in July, is arranged for the study of the
work to be seen in a particular district in Eng¬
land. Rooms are taken at a convenient centre by

Architecture at the

After the very frank interchange of views
that took place in these pages between leading
architects inside and outside the Academy 0 and
the general agreement on certain defects, one
looked forward with some curiosity to the exhibi¬
tion of this summer. It will be remembered that
in the discussion initiated by Mr. Ricardo the
following principles emerged, and were emphasised
by two of the Academy architects who took part
in the discussion. First of all the picturesque
water-colourist with his perspectives was to be
severely discouraged, not only because his spank¬
ing hansoms, giddy scenes of fashion, oriental
warmth, spacious vistas, and so forth, were a
“ mild nuisance and nightmare ” (Ruskin’s de¬
scription of Raphaelistic art) to those who care
for pictures ; but still more because all this, nei¬
ther attractive nor tolerable pictorially, is not
architecture. Instead of this misdirected effort,
it was contended, we ought to have workmanlike
geometrical drawings of elevations, of plans and of
sections, with a sketch perspective when necessary
to give an idea of effect and grouping. Tinting,
when employed, was to serve the purpose of
distinguishing materials, and no more. Secondly,
we were given to understand that the reason
of the largely unreal and inadequate character
of the exhibition is that enough material of the
right sort is not sent in to cover the walls even of
this one little room. Architects were told that
the fault lay with themselves ; that if they sent

* See Architectural Review for October, November, and
December, 1902; January and February, 1903.

those participating in the visit, and a round of
visits paid to everything architecturally interesting
within a range of twenty miles or so.

1 he session of each year begins in June, but
class -work in October. The course extends over
four years, lectures and studio being taken alter¬
nately, and the former are so arranged that no
overlapping occurs.

The number of students attending the classes
and studio is 200, the staff numbering 17 lecturers
and instructors. The names of 28 architects are
on the list of visitors to the Design Class.

I he Royal Institute of British Architects has
for the last twelve years made a grant of £100 to
cover the deficit in the working of the educational
scheme, but with the exception of this sum the
whole of the cost is defrayed by the Association,
with the assistance of the students’ fees, and no
grant or Government subsidy is received.

Royal Academy I.

in workmanlike drawings, these drawings would
be welcomed and hung.

My mind, that of a disinterested observer of
the exhibition, remains so far innocent that til!
events disprove it I take people to mean what
they say. I thought therefore that as everybody
appeared to approve of changes, and the desire
was echoed by some of those in authority, we
should find a new departure in the current exhibi¬
tion, or at least a fair proportion of examples of
desirable practice. Judge of my surprise when I
found myself faced on entering by a blushing wall
of water-colours. The centre and keynote is a
pictorial view of Mr. Bodley’s church at Clumber.
This is Mr. Bodley’s diploma piece, and we may
surmise therefore that he does not share the ideas
of his colleagues on the exemplary style of archi¬
tectural drawing, and perhaps that, being on the
council this year, he had hung a side of the
gallery in illustration of his ideas. But this ex¬
planation will not cover the whole ground, for on
turning to another wall I find that from Mr.
Belcher’s office comes a water-colour perspective
with all the features he had so strongly and pro¬
perly condemned. Here are hansoms more than
usually spanking ; here is that conflict of semi¬
pictorial painting with semi-architectural drawing
that results in a depressing, washy-woolly world.
It is true that Mr. Belcher sends a model of part
of this building to restore the balance a little. I
conjecture that the production of picture-per¬
spectives can only be gradually slowed down and
extinguished ; that practice cannot keep pace

Architecture at the Royal Academy . 223

with righteous theory; but these discrepancies
bring a shock to minds, like my own, that remain
incurably innocent.

The proper attitude of the critic, then, for a
great part of this exhibition would be to treat
what is shown, not as architecture, but as water¬
colours, and in the present notice I shall yield to
this desire of the architects and treat them as
painters. It would be a salutary result of this
challenge if architects could be brought to believe
that in the judgment of painters, painting, as
most architects practise it, is not worth the pains.
Mr. Bodley’s church is not a fanciful or meretri¬
cious drawing; it was possibly drawn from the
fact, as the very ugly arrangement of the path
suggests. But it is a dull and tiresome kind of
water-colour. It would be much better in black
and white, or in flat tint and conventional shadow.
As it stands it is neither agreeable picture nor
satisfactory convention of drawing. If Mr. Bod-
lev’s idea of a landscape does not recommend his
architecture, neither does Mr. Goldie's idea of an
interior. This acute-funnelled perspective, with
the awkward emphasis on the tesselated pave¬
ment, is not the view a picture-maker would
choose, to recommend the architecture. The
colour adds nothing pleasant to the architectural
fact, and it cannot be called natural ; where,
then, is its advantage? Much the best of the
semi-pictorial drawings is of a house designed by
Mr. George Jack. The drawing is, I gather, from
the hand of Mr. Oswald Crawford. It shows no
little skill of effect in the sky and garden, and the
stonework is laid in with care for its character and
freshness of touch. Here is something that almost
stands its ground as a picture, and indeed must,
for this one view of the house is somewhat puzzling
architecturally. It would be in place as the
supplement to drawings and plans, just as a
photograph would. The drawing, again, by Mr.
Joass, of Mr. Belcher’s Cornbury Park interior, is
a much better type than the perspective already
referred to : the general scheme of tinting is agree¬
able and skilfully carried out. But even here there
is a conflict between conventional tinting and the
realism of light in the reflections on the floor.
Another skilful water-colour, with a free use of
gouache, is a view of a pergola by Mr. Mallows.
Mr. Flockhart is another clever sketcher, but
1535 is not a first-rate example of his powers. At
the other end of the scale are drawings like Mr.
Harrison Townsend's, of a pulpit, where the exe¬
cution is no better than the design. Of the re¬
mainder, some are cases of legitimate tinting,
either to explain that bricks are red, and so forth ;
or sketches of coloured decoration ; but the lead
is given by drawings that muddle tinting with
landscape effect.

A more serious matter than the persistence
in parts of the exhibition of a mistaken pictorial
tradition is the rarity of examples of the right
method. There is hardly a plan or section in the
exhibition, except when it has been slipped into
the corner of a drawing. There is no important
building fully illustrated. If we take projects, it
certainly would have been interesting to compare
the competition designs for the Liverpool Cathe¬
dral : but only one or at most two designs are
illustrated with an approach to completeness. If
we take important buildings in course of construc¬
tion, Mr. Aston Webb’s bay of the College of
Science and elevation and perspective of the new
Museum buildings are satisfactory representations
so far as they go ; but no one can guess from
these latter what is the height and character of
of the galleries behind the street front. That the
fault does not lie altogether with exhibitors is
proved by the case of Mr. Ricardo. From the
exhibition, at first sight, one would suppose that
the champion of workmanlike and complete illus¬
tration had sent in no more than an elevation of
his Johannesburg building. But this drawing is
numbered 4, so it is probably the survivor of a
series that included plans and sections. An ex¬
perience like this is not encouraging, and goes to
prove Mr. Ricardo’s contentions.

And that brings me to the last general considera¬
tion before the quality of the designs is dealt with.
The policy of the hangers evidently is not to limit
the exhibition to what can properly be seen in
this small room, and to show this limited number
of buildings adequately. Their policy is to in¬
clude as many fragmentary designs as possible,
whether they can be seen or not. The result is a
number of little drawings piled up so high that
the top rows are beyond examination without
stilts, while the bottom rows demand prostration
on the floor. The idea, in short, is that drawings
are not there for examination, but merely to
satisfy the exhibitor by storing his design in the
Academy, so that he can claim such honour as
invisibility at the Academy confers. I contend
that this policy is absurd. If the architects at
the Academy are of opinion that the material sent
in is good enough to require more space, surely
they could obtain a second or a bigger room. If
that, by strange Median laws, is impossible, it
would surely be better to select a limited number
of designs each year, show them comfortably and
adequately, and print an honour list of those
which have been accepted but crowded out. At
present nothing is completely shown, and a great
deal is hung but practically not shown at all.
Much of it is quite insignificant, but the attempt
to make it out is fatiguing and irritating to the
visitor. D. S. MacColl.

224

Liverpool Cat/i edral Competition.

LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL COMPETITION. DESIGN PLACED FIRST BY THE ASSESSORS.
G. GILBERT SCOTT, ARCHITECT. ELEVATION TO ST. JAMES' ROAD.

Liverpool Cathedral Competition.

The decision of the Cathedral Committee
not to accept any of the plans submitted appears
to me the most astounding act of folly ever com¬
mitted by any selecting committee. Folly is too
mild a word ; it is a foolishness which borders on
immorality.

No doubt there was the saving clause in the
conditions that the Committee did not bind them¬
selves to carry out any of the designs, but in the
face of the assessors’ award they cannot shelter
behind that. The author of the design placed
first, having successfully run the gauntlet of the
preliminary competition, has during the past year
prepared further designs and drawings, and will
hardly be satisfied with the reason given. And the
profession will not be satisfied either. The alleged
reason for this strange proceeding on the part of
the Committee is that the placed design does not
allow of a large congregation being within sight
of the preacher. This, it is stated, the Committee
laid stress upon in the conditions ; the same com¬
mittee who issued the famous restriction, “the
style is to be Gothic.” It seems incredible that
when they thus declared their predilection for one
particular style, they did not know what it meant ;
and yet that is the obvious conclusion, for no ad¬
mirers of Gothic architecture, who really under¬
stand it, will claim that one of its advantages is
that in Gothic churches the congregation can see
and hear better than in churches of other styles.
The restriction was withdrawn, true; but that
the feeling of the Committee remained unchanged
at the time of the first competition was only too
evident from the selections which were made then.
Have the Committee now changed their minds ?
have they begun to realize that a mediaeval plan
is unsuitable for a modern cathedral ? If that
were really so, one would welcome their conver¬
sion ; whilst regretting that owing to its tardiness
a great injustice is likely to result. But until a state¬
ment to this effect is officially made one remains
sceptical, and finds it difficult to believe that the
reason given is the true one ; * for the advisory
architects have spoken with no uncertain voice.
They say that in the design they have selected
they find “ pre-eminently shown ” — an “original
conception — fine and noble proportion — know¬
ledge of detail — and that power combined with
beauty, that makes a great and noble building.”
And the majority of the Committee apparently
find none of these things. Who is more likely to
be right, Messrs. Bodley and Shaw or the mem¬
bers of the Committee ?

Let the design speak for itself. We publish it

* The rejection can hardly be on account of the author’s
youth. Such a plea might be put forward in some places, but
hardly in a town that owes St. George’s Hall to the genius of
Elmes.

so that architects who have not seen the plans
may have the opportunity of judging whether the
chiefs of their profession have blundered.

No. i is the selected design, and its author is
Mr. George Gilbert Scott. This sounds like an
extract from a fifty-year old paper.0 Mr. Scott is
the only competitor who has attempted to grapple
with the peculiarities of the site. As was pointed
out in our review of the preliminary competition,
the only spot from which the cathedral can satis¬
factorily be seen is from the other side of the
cemetery, where the ground is considerably higher
than that on which the church will stand. To
avoid the ugly effect of a long roof seen in eleva¬
tion, Mr. Scott breaks his side by carrying three
of his bays — two to the nave, and one to the
chancel — -higher than the main roof, and by plac¬
ing two large towers over the transepts, which are
connected by a high transverse roof. The effect
externally is most striking, and the internal height

* No official announcement is made as to the authors of the
different designs, but the following is believed to be a correct
list : — No i, Mr. G. G. Scott. We may welcome the successful
advent of one whose grandfather occupied a unique position
amongst English architects, and whose father was the architect
of some of the finest churches of the last quarter of the last
century. No. 2, Messrs. Austin and Paley ; No. 3, Mr. W. J.
Tapper; No. 4, Mr. Malcolm Stark ; No. 5, Mr. C. Nicholson.

LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL COMPETITION DESIGN BY
G. GILBERT SCOTT. PLAN OF THE CRYPT.

226

Liverpool Cathedral Competition.

SCALE OF FF£T

LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL COMPETITION DESIGN BY G. GILBERT SCOTT.
CROSS SECTION, LOOKING EAST.

is so great (116 feet by 136 feet), that little danger
need be felt that the vault will appear too much
broken. There is no window in the south end (it
must be remembered that the entrance is to the
north) except a small circular rose window, and
the assessors suggest that a larger one should be
substituted. There is no difficulty in providing
this, although one may think that Mr. Scott was
perfectly right, considering the aspect, to keep his
window as small as possible, and let it appear as
a jewel in a wide setting. No competitor has
faced the difficulty of providing a satisfactory ap¬
proach to the cathedral, but Mr. Scott’s sugges¬
tion of an atrium seems a possible solution. His
entrances to the church, however, lack dignity,

and appear too small. Another fault in his design is
his vestry accommodation. This is not fully shown
on the plan, but it appears to be inadequate.

As regards the point raised by the Committee
that his plan is bad for seeing, his nave is certainly
somewhat narrow. But it is evident that abso¬
lutely no reason exists why it should not be
widened 5 or even 10 feet. If this were done, no
shadow of a cause would remain for the rejection
of his design. To pass it over will be a national
calamity. It is in its way almost as great a work
of art as St. George’s Hall ; and is stamped by
an originality, without a trace of affectation, rarely
met with in modern architecture.

F. M. Simpson.

'Scalc or rcerT

Liverpool Cathedral Competition .

22 7

LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL COMPETITION DESIGN
BY G. GILBERT SCOTT. GROUND PLAN.

228

Liverpool Cathedral Competition

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LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL COMPETITION DESIGN BY
G. GILBERT SCOTT. LONGITUDINAL SECTION.

The Guildhall, Peterborough

229

THE GUILDHALL, • PETERBOROUGH. THREATENED WITH DEMOLITION.

(See next page.)

The Guildhall, Peterborough,

Threatened with Demolition.

The Guildhall at Peterborough was built
in the reign of Charles II., whose arms appear on
the east front. A little lower down the date
1671 is cut on the keystone of the centre arch.
In plan there are two arches on the south and
north sides and three on the east. The west side
is concealed by an annexe, which does not improve
the view of the old building. The first floor
is supported on beams, the ground floor, as at
Wallingford, Windsor, Uxbridge, and many other
places, being open. The arches are built on low
columns with wide capitals and square, plain
bases. The windows of the upper storey are

cross-mullioned in stone and dormers open in the
roof, a gable and clock being over the king's
arms. Altogether, this is almost the only build¬
ing, outside the cathedral close, except the
thoroughly-restored church of St. John adjoining,
of which Peterborough can boast which does not
belong to the nineteenth century or later. A
movement has long been on foot among the
citizens to remove it in favour of something
larger, and, if we may judge by the specimen
next door, something uglier, but it has so far been
defeated.

W. J. Loftie.

Current Architecture.

Christ’s Hospital. — The new buildings (at
West Horsham) occupy an extensive estate of
about 1,200 acres, three miles south-west from the
town of Horsham. The buildings, designed by
Messrs. Aston Webb, A.R.A., F.S.A., and E.
Ingress Bell, and built by Messrs. Longley and
Sons, of Crawley, Sussex, are of brick and
stone, in an Italianised Late Gothic style, with
but little ornamentation. The foundation-stone
was laid by His Majesty King Edward VII. (then
Prince of Wales), October 23rd, 1897, and the
total cost, including land, has amounted to about
£500,000.

The boarding-houses, facing south, are ar¬
ranged in detached blocks of two houses each,
along the convex face of a flattened curve, on
either side of the dining hall, which has kit¬
chens and offices in the rear ; to the east of this
line, curving northwards, and therefore detached,
is the infirmary, and beyond that, other detached
buildings forming a sanatorium. In the centre,
extending southwards from the dining-hall, is the
great quadrangle, enclosed on the east and west
by cloisters and open arcades ; adjoining the
cloister on the west is the chapel, and similarly
placed, on the east, are art schools, the science
schools and laboratories, and the library and
museum ; at the south end of the quadrangle
stands the school hall, running north and south,
and on either side of it are large detached blocks
of class-rooms, connected with the hall by covered
ways from the cloister. A broad roadway, lined
with trees, runs out east and west from the north
end of the quadrangle, and is continued round the

curve northwards on either side to the boundary
of the estate ; this road separates the boarding¬
houses from the private residences of the masters,
which lie to the south of it, on both sides of the
great quadrangle, each having its own gardens,
bounded on the south by a secondary road ;
beyond the school hall, southwards, is a large
open space, with a straight avenue on each side, a
measured quarter of a mile in length, for running,
etc., and in the centre of its south side will even¬
tually stand the music school. The house blocks
are planned generally in the form of the letter H,
each bearing the name of some distinguished old
“ Blue,” each block consisting of two separate
“houses,” called in every case “A” and “B”;
the central or connecting block in each is allotted
on different floors to house and assistant masters,
matron and maids, the boys being lodged in the
transverse blocks, which have exits on the east
and west ; every “house” has on the ground floor
its own day room, prefects’ studies, changing
room, and offices ; the upper floors consist of
dormitories, 83 by 21 feet, with baths and lava¬
tories at each end, and separate staircases. The
dining-hall, which has four entrances from the
quadrangle, is 154 by 56 feet, and capable of
dining 820 boys and the masters ; the north wall
is now almost entirely covered with the great
painting by Antonio Verrio, formerly in the old
hall, and representing the visit to the school in
1672 of King Charles II., and his foundation of
the Mathematical School ; there are also numerous
fine portraits, and the old reading pulpit has been
restored and set up on the south side ; at the

Curve n t A rch i tecture

THE QUADRANGLE. THE CHAPEL ON’ THE LEFT, THE DINING HALL ON THE RIGHT.

CHRIST’S HOSPI'l'AL, WEST HORSHAM. ASTON WEBB, A.R.A., AND E. INGRESS BELL, ARCHITECTS.

232

Current A rchitecture.

west end of the hall are common rooms,
and at the east end is the court room, a
counterpart of the old court room in
Newgate Street ; in rear of the hall, on
the north, rises a massive and lofty
water tower, the supply for which is
derived from a deep well at Stammer-
ham.

The School Hall, at the opposite end
of the quadrangle, is 130 feet in length
by 50 wide ; at the south end is an
orchestra for about 100 performers, with
retiring rooms, and above these is placed
the great organ : the area will seat 1,000
persons.

The chapel, standing north and south,
is 147 ft. long by 41 ft. wide, and the
interior will seat 1,000 persons.

The central archway of the open ar¬
cade, in the old School courtyard in
London, has been again set up in the
new buildings so as to form part of a
similar arcade on the west side of the
quadrangle: the statues of Charles II.
and Sir John Moore, and other figures
have also been transferred and placed in
niches on the exterior walls of the prin¬
cipal buildings : the old pediment with
its Hanking pilasters, niche, etc., which
formed the main entrance to the old
schools, and was the work of Sir C.
Wren, have been removed and re-erected
at West Horsham, and the stone piers
and iron railings enclosing the old play¬
ground next Newgate Street, will be
used to fence the road entrances to the
new school.

The preparatory school is situated
at the extreme east of the range of
houses, and will accommodate 120 junior
boys.

The infirmary occupies an isolated site
on the north-east.

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL, WEST HORSHAM. GENERAL BLOCK PLAN.
ASTON WEBB, A.R.A., AND E. INGRESS BELL, ARCHITECTS.

Current A rchitecture.

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WEBB, A.R.A., AND E. INGRESS BELL, ARCHITECTS.

234

Current Architecture

CHRIST’S HOSPITAL, WEST HORSHAM. THE DINING HALL.
ASTON WEBB, A.R.A., AND E. INGRESS BELL, ARCHITECTS.

Current A rckitecture

235

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CHRIST’S HOSPITAL, WEST HORSHAM. THE CHAPEL, LOOKING EAST.
ASTON WEBB, A.R.A., AND E. INGRESS BELL, ARCHITECTS.

Correspondence.

ANDREA PALLADIO.

. To the Editorial Committee of The Architectural
Review.

Gentlemen, —

Mr. Blomfield has done me the honour of con¬
tributing to your columns a lengthy and somewhat
splenetic criticism of my little book on Andrea Palladio;
but in my judgment, such as it is, he has not added
anything to our knowledge of the eminent architect
about whom so much ink, both vitriolic and otherwise,
has been spilt. Your readers will have gathered that,
in Mr. Blomfield’s opinion, both literature and history,
so far as Andrea Palladio is concerned, would have
benefited if it had occurred to him instead of to myself
to write the book about which so much more has been
heard than its author thought was possible when he
penned it. I have distinctly stated that it is im¬
possible to assert the authenticity of many of the
statements made in my book as there are absolutely
no proofs forthcoming. Mr. Blomfield with many
“ probables ” and “ possibles ” can only reiterate
what is believed, and surely my beliefs are as well
grounded as his own. With regard to Palladio’s
earliest known work, it is more than probable that
he was capable of working under the supervision of
Trissino at the early age of eighteen, a fact stated by
me. It is so easy to quibble, but I have failed to find
that Mr. Blomfield has any evidence upon which he
can either refute what I have stated as facts in the
confident manner he tries to do, or assert as facts some
of the bold statements which he has made, both to the
disadvantage of the dead Palladio and the living
Fletcher. Why doubt Milizia in regard to the
name of Almerigo’s house? Has Mr. Blomfield
better information at hand ? As to the spelling of
different names, I have found much diversity among
the various authorities. Vasari is known as Oasari ;
but in quibbling one might argue that his name
was Aretino. I have referred to Bertotti Scamozzi
under his first name in order to avoid confusion with
Vincenzio Scamozzi,. Regarding Palladio’s original
woodcuts they would give a quite inaccurate idea of
most of the buildings as erected. As an example the
Chiericati Palace might be mentioned, for to this
building were added the unsightly stucco finials and
statues not in Palladio’s design. The “alarming” (?)
developments called L'Art Nouveau I have failed to
find outside a small section of Suburbia, and cannot
see how my book, if otherwise written, could influence
this movement. Antiquity in the time of which we
write was generally understood to be that of the
Romans, this, if Mr. Blomfield wishes, can be traced
back to early Egyptian and prehistoric ages. Sca¬
mozzi is hardly reliable in regard to the list of his
own and Palladio’s finished works. In some writers’
opinions his jealousy of Palladio was great and his
conceit immense. The “ rust of barbarity ” is not
mentioned as affecting the great architects. Palladio
was born, as I have stated, in an age pregnant with
ambition, “ To continue the great work of the Renais¬

sance,” and we owe him gratitude for the records which
he has left behind, records neglected by most of his pre¬
decessors. Mr. Blomfield is at some pains to prove
Palladio’s inferiority to many other architects and de¬
scribes him as “ An old man of the sea,” and seems to
grudge him the success he so well deserved. The
knowledge of his “antecedents, ‘the labours of his
predecessors,’ 1 the intellectual atmosphere of the
time that made them possible at all,’ ” would need to
embrace at least two centuries of history, and this I
have not attempted. Mr. Blomfield informs us that
Palladio’s extraordinary reputation is indeed a re¬
markable illustration of the “ luck of history,” that his
position as an architect was not easy to determine,
and that he lacked sincerity and originality ; he yet
finds (as an extenuation I presume) “ that he had a
great feeling for proportion, was a most ingenious
planner, and so far as resource and knowledge go,
a skilful builder.” Is this the faint praise which
damns ? It is strange that Mr. Blomfield should
also indulge in “literary embellishments.” “That
whirlwind of energy sweeping through every cranny
of the ages” had evidently not accomplished its
mission of regeneration in Palladio’s time, hence
the necessity of those writings which were in Mr.
Blomfield’s opinion invested with “a fallacious air of
scholarship,” and which were eagerly sought for and
read. On this page of the “ Review ” we are told that
“the heroes banged each other,” that “clanging
blows ” were exchanged and that “ heroes” cannot go
on behaving like this for ever — I trust not. The
Italians, by a gymnastic feat unknown to us, got
clear of the straight waistcoat by turning their backs
on their pedagogues, and we find them indulging
in their freedom by a wild “ orgy of exuberant archi¬
tecture.” The metaphor needs no comment. The
fine instinct of the French is a point which I
prefer to leave to Mr. Blomfield’s superior decision.
One is, however, glad to find near the end of this
remarkable “Review” that, despite all his previous
accusations against Palladio, he condescends to state
that “as architects go” (does he mean archangels),
“ he was a learned man, a past master of technique,
and an architect who, in (at least) two churches, shewed
himself capable of fine and distinguished work.” The
“ fallacious air of scholarship ” is considerately toned
down to “ modesty ” further on, and the former
“ insincerity ” now becomes “a conscious stand against
the impudent audacity of ignorance, and desire to
recall the art of Architecture to the graver practice of
the past.” How pleased Palladio would be for this
crumb from the higher criticism of Mr. Blomfield’s
table, and in his name we must thank this generous
critic and remark that “ All’s well that ends well ” —
for Palladio. Banister F. Fletcher.

[As Mr. Fletcher complained of “ gross unfairness ”
in the review of his book, we agreed to print a letter
from him in reply, and accordingly insert it at length,
with this explanation to our readers. — Ed. Archi¬
tectural Review.]

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW.

SEMI-GRAND PIANO IN LOUIS XVI. STYLE.

John Broadwood (Si Sons, Ltd.,

33, GREAT PULTENEY STREET. W

THE ARCHITECTURAL

REVIEW, J
I903, VOLUME
NO. 80.

U L Y,
XIV.

THE STRAND DEMOLITION. THE LAST OF FRENCH’S
FROM A DRAWING BY MUIRHEAD BONE.

THE

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW

Volume Fourteen
July— Dec.

1 9°3

London

6, Great New Street, Fetter Lane, E.C.

“ The Architectural Review ” Editorial Committee.

R. Norman Shaw, R.A.

John Belcher, A.R.A., F.R.I.B.A.
Frank T. Baggallay, F.R.I.B.A.
Reginald Blomfield, M.A.

Gerald C. Horsley.

Mervyn Macartney.

E. J. May.

J. H. Elder-Du

Walter Millard.

Ernest Newton.

Edward S. Prior, M.A.

Halsey Ricardo.

Professor F. M. Simpson, F.R.I.B.A.
Leonard Stokes, F.R.I.B.A.

D. S. MacColl, M.A.

, Secretary.

INDEX TO VOLUME FOURTEEN.

Allhallows, Lombard Street

Illustration : — Plan of Church, Measured and Drawn by H. Tanner, junr., 203.

All Saints’ Convent, Colney Chapel. See Current Architecture.

Architects, The Legal Registration of ... ... Frank Baggallay ...

Architectural Education :

HI. Great Britain

The Architectural School of the Royal College of Art. Beresford Bite.

IV. Great Britain

University College, Liverpool ... ... F. M. Simpson.

The Architectural Division, King’s College, London. R. Elsey Smith.

The Architectural School, University College, London. The Late T. Roger Smith.

V. France

L’Enseignement de L’Architecture en France J . Guadet, Professeur a VEcole des Beaux-arts

VI. Great Britain

University College, London ... ... F. M. Simpson.

The School of Applied Art, Royal Institution, Edinburgh.

PAGE

202

D. S. MacColl

136

l79

James A. Morris

Architecture at the Royal Academy. II. ...

Architecture, Current. See Current Architecture.

Ayr, The Old Bridge of
Baggallay, Frank ...

Baker and Masey ...

Bentley, The Late John Francis
Bilson, John
Blomfield, Reginald
Bone, Muirhead
Books :

“ Modern School Buildings.” (Felix Clay)

“The Georgian Period Portfolio.” XII. Conclusion (American Arch.). XV. J. Loftie
“Papers of the British School at Rome.” Vol. I.... Alex. Graham

Botterill, Son, and Bilson

See Current Architecture.

146, 158, 159, 160, 1 6 1 , 162, 163, 164
29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

. 183

128, 129, 130, 131
36

188, 189, 190, 1 91 , 192, 193, 194
82, 212
... 2, 74

Ernest Newton

189, 190, 1 9 1 , 192, 193,

143
180
2 T 4
194

Bridlington Grammar School.

Brierley, Walter H.

Buck, L. L.

Cave, Walter
Champneys, A. C. ...

Champneys, Basil ...

Clifford’s Inn, The Fate of
Coleherne Court. Sec Current Architecture.

Correspondence :

Exeter Cathedral ... ... ... ... R. F. Hodges

Illustrations: — Plan of Nave Piers, Exeter; Wall Arcading, St. Paul's Tower, Exeter
G. J. F. Hookway

The Villa Madama and the “Vigna.” ... ... Reginald Blomfield ..

News from Anjou ... ... ... ... Cecil Hallett

Court House, Helmeslev, Yorks., The. See Current Architecture.

165, 166, 167, 168, 169

Measured and Drawn by

144

212

Current Architecture : —

Illustrations : — New Entrance Lodges, Toddington, Gloucestershire: E. J. May, Architect, 28, 29. The Williamsburgh
(New East River Bridge), New York City, U.S.A.: L. L. Buck, Chief Engineer, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34. The
Scandinavian Sailors' Home, West India Docks : Niven and Wigglesworth, Architects, 35. Westminster
Cathedral, The Summit of the Campanile: The late }. F. Bentley, Architect, 36. All Saints’ Convent, Colney
Chapel, St. Albans: Leonard Stokes, Architect, no, 122, 123, 123, 125, 126, 127. The Rhodes Building, Cape
Town, S.A. : Baker and Masey, Architects, 128, 129, 130, 131. The Eagle Insurance Building, Manchester:
Charles Heathcote and Sons, Architects, 131, 132. Welburn Hall, Yorks., Reconstruction and Additions:
Walter H. Brierlev, Architect, 146, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164. Coleherne Court, Earls' Court : Walter
Cave, Architect, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169. No. 19, New Cavendish Street, W. : E. B. Hoare and M. Wheeler,
Architects, 169, 170. St. Nicholai Vicarage and the St. Nicholai Dispensary, Svendborg, Denmark : Magdahl
Neilsen, Architect, 170, 171, 172. Bridlington Grammar School: John Bilson, Architect, 188, 189. Hymers
College, Hull: Botterill, Son, and Bilson, Architects, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194. The Court House, Helmesley,
Yorks.: Temple Moore, Architect, 194. Motor Car House, Gailowhill, Renfrewshire, N.B. : James Salmon,
Son, and Gillespie, Architects, 193, 196. A Gable, Parr’s Bank, Manchester: Charles Heathcote and Sons,
Architects, 197. Parr’s Bank, Leicester: Everard and Pick, Architects, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202.

Index

PAGE

Demolition of Old Westminster and the “ Improvement ” Scheme, The. Edward P. Warren ... 105

Illustrations : — Great College Street, showing Demolition at East End, 106. Cowley Street, Looking Westward, 106.

North Street and St. John’s Church, 107. An Entrance Hall in Cowley Street, 107.

Design of London Shop-Fronts, The ... ... Howard luce ... ... ... 75

Illustrations 21, New Street, St. Martin's Lane, 75. 137 and 138, Long Acre, 76. 139, Long Acre, 77. 34, Hay-
market, 78. 181, High Holborn, 79. 40, Strand: George Walton, Architect, 80. 5, Queen Victoria Street,
Interior: George Walton, Architect, 81. 25, Cheapside, E.C. : A. Palser, Architect, 82. 21, High Street,

Marylebone : Reginald Blomfield, Architect, 82. 108-110, High Holborn: W. Charles Waymouth, Architect,

83. 5, Old Bond Street: A. N. Paterson, Architect, 84. 212, Piccadilly: C. R. G. Hall, Architect, 85. 21, Old

Bond Street, 86.

Eagle Insurance Building, Manchester. See Current Architecture.

Education, Architectural ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 24, 87, 136, 179

English Medieval Figure-Sculpture ... ... Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner 57

Chapter VI.: First Gothic Figure-Sculpture, 1175-1280. Carving in Relief ... ... 57

Illustrations : — Westminster Abbey, North Transept, 56. Peterborough Cathedral, West Front ; Ditto, Parapet of
Apse, 57. Wells Cathedral, West Front ; Ditto, “ Chnst Among the Doctors,” 58. Ditto, “ St. John ’ ; Ditto,
“Coronation of the Virgin”; Ditto, “Resurrection of the Dead,” 59. Ditto, “The Resurrection ” ; Ditto,
Tympanum of Principal Doorway, 60. Crowland Abbey, West Doorway, “ Story of St. Guthlac,” 61. Lincoln,

South Doorway of “ Angel Choir,” 61. Westminster Abbey, Chapter House Doorway, 60.

Chapter VII. : (Section I.) The First Gothic Statues, 1200-1280 ... ... ... 173

Illustrations : — Peterborough Cathedral, West Front, Apostle Figures ; Ditto, St. Peter, 176. Wells Cathedral, Effigy
in South Aisle of Choir ; Ditto, West Front, Four Typical Figures, 177. Ditto, Ditto, Types A and B, 178.

Chapter VII. : (Section II.) The Statues of Wells Cathedral ... ... ... 204

Illustrations /—Types F and C; Type D, 204. (a) Type C; ( b ) Type G; ( c ) Type D: (d) Type F; (r) Type F;

(/) Type H, 205. Type E, 206. Type F; Type G, 208. Type G; Type H, 209. Type H; Type J, 210.
Winchester Cathedral, Statue in Feretory, 210

Everard and Pick ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 198, 199, 200, 201, 202

Exe Bridge, Exeter ... ... ... ... W. R. Lethaby ... ... ... 23

Illustration, 22.

Exeter Cathedral. See Correspondence.

Falkner, Harold ...
Figure-Sculpture, English Medieval
Gaiety, The New and the Old
Gardner, Arthur ...

Gardner, J. Starkie
Gare d’Orleans, Paris, The New
Giulio Romano at Mantua ...

Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner
Drawing by Muirhead Bone

Halsey Ricardo

57, i73» 2°4
74

57, i73, 204
... 105

... 63

I47

Illustrations: — View of Mantua from the East, Across the Lagoon, 147. The Tournament Yard (Cavallerizza) in the
Ducal Palace, 149. Palazzo del Te, Garden Front, 149. Ditto, Internal Courtyard ; Ditto, 150. Ditto, Atrium
Opening on to the Garden; Ditto, Ditto, Looking on to the Garden, 151. Ditto, Room in the Casino della
Grotta, 152. Ditto, The Favourite Horses of Duke Frederich Gonzaga ; Ditto, “ The Story of Cupid and
Psyche,” 153. Palazzo della Giustizia, Mantua, 154. Giulio Romano’s Own House, Mantua, 155. Palazzo
del Te, “ Polyphemus,” 157.

Graham, Alexander ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 214

Guadet, j. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 136

Hall, C. R. G. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 85

Hallett, Cecil ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 212

Heathcote and Sons, Charles ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 131, 132, 197

Hoare and Wheeler ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 169, 170

Hodges, R. F. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 144

Hookway, G. J. F. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 144

Hospital of St. Cross, The. I. ... ... ... Basil Champneys ... ... ... 111

Illustrations : — St. Cross, from the Water-meads, in. View from the North-West, 113. Interior of South Transept,
Showing Screen from St. Faith’s, 114. View from the South-East, Showing the Triple Arch, 115. Detail of
the Triple Arch, 116. The Choir, from the Nave, 116. The West Doorway, 118. The Renaissance Screen
and South Choir Aisle, 118. Details of the South and North Ends of the Renaissance Screen, 119. Detail of
the Centre of the Renaissance Screen, 120. General View of the Interior of the Church, 120.

Hymers College, Hull. See Current Architecture.

Ince, Howard ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 75

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities ... ... A. C. Champneys ... ... ... 3

Illustrations: — Map of the East Side of Iona, Showing the Position of the Cathedral Buildings, 4. The Cathedral
Buildings from the South-West, 5. Iona Cathedral from the South-East, 7. The Cathedral from the West, 10.

The Choir, 10. Archways to Chapter House, 13. Door from Sacristy to Choir, 13. Iona Cathedral,
Capitals, 14. Ditto, Ditto, 15. Ditto, Details of Capital, Showing the Complete Carving, 16 Ditto, the South
Aisle, from the South Transept; Ditto, The Choir, from the East End, 17. Ditto, View from North Transept ;

Ditto, the South Aisle, 18. Ditto, View from West, after Restoration, 19. Ditto, from the South-East, after
Restoration, 20. St. Martin’s Cross, 20. The Nunnery. Nave, from the South-East, 21.

Jones, Ronald P. ...

Judge, Mark H.

Knossos, The Palace at. II.

Legal Registration of Architects, The
Lethaby, W. R.

Loftie, W. J.

R. Phene Spiers
Frank Baggallay

Lombard Street Signs, Some. With Drawings by Harold Falkner

Illustrations: — Plan of Lombard Street in 1799, 99. Plan of Lombard Street in 1899, 99. “The Phoenix,” 100.
" The Artichoke ” at No. 24, 100. “ The Artichoke ” at No. 28, 100. “ The Sun ” (“ Queen’s Head and Sun ”),

100. “ The Black Moor's Head,” 101. “ The Vine ”;“ The Cardinal’s Cap or Hatt,” 101. ‘ The Cape Lion ” ;
“The Cat-a-fiddling,” 102. “The Black Spread Eagle,” 102. “The Ram,” 103. “The King's Head,” 103.
“The Anchor,” 103. “The Grasshopper,” 104. “The Seven Stars,” 104. “The Black Boy,” drawing by
J. Starkie Gardner, 105.

i33

97
144
180

Index

P..GE

London Shop fronts, The Design of ... Howard Ince ... ... ... ... 75

MacColl, D. S. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . . ... 26

May, E. J. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 28, 29

Me-di^val Figure-Sculpture, English ... Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner 57, 173, 204

Moore, Temple ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 194

Morris, James A. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 183

Motor Car House, Gallowhill, Renfrewshire. See Current Architecture.

Neilsen, Magdahl ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 170, 171, 172

News from Anjou. See Correspondence.

New Gare d’Orleans, Paris, The ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 63

Illustrations : — Sketch Plan, 63. General View from North Bank of Seine, 64. Detail of Facade, 65. View of Fa9ade

from North-east, 66. View of Hotel, 67. General View of Interior, daring Construction, looking West, 68.

Ditto, from South-west, 69. The Booking Hall, looking West, during Construction, 70. Ditto, looking East, 71.
General View of Interior, looking West, 72.

Newton, Ernest ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 143

Nineteen, New Cavendish Street, W. See Current Architecture.

Niven and Wigglesworth ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 35

Notes ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 62

Old Bridge of Ayr, The ... ... ... ... James A. Morris ... ... ... 183

Illustrations : — View from the East, 182. View from the South-west, 183. Detail, showing Fissure in East Cutwater
of Northern Pier, 184. Approach from North, 185. View, looking towards High Street, 185. Plan, Section,
etc., 186.

Palace at Ivnossos, Crete, The. II. — (Conclusion) ... R. Phene Spiers ... ... ... 91

Illustrations : — Halls on East Slope ; plans and restored sections of the Quadruple Staircase, the Hall of the Colon¬
nades, and the Megaron of the double-axes, 92. Sections of the Hall of the Colonnades, restored, 93. The
Mycenean order, based by Mr. Fyfe on the representations in the Temple fresco, 95. Restorations (partly
conjectural) by Mr. Fyfe, 96. Plaques of Porcelain Mosaic with representations of houses and towers, 96.

Palser, A. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 82

Parr’s Bank, Leicester and Manchester. See Current Architecture.

Paterson, A. N. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 84

Phi lae ... ... ... ... ... ... Ronald P. Jones ... ... ... 43

Illustrations : — Plan, 42. View from Mainland, looking West, 44. View from one of the Islands, looking East, 45.

The Outer Court of the Temple of Isis, looking North, 47. West Colonnade of the Outer Court, Temple of
Isis, 48. East Colonnade of the Outer Court, Temple of Isis, 49. West Colonnade of the Fore-court, Temple
of Isis, 50. Capitals in the Hypostyle Hall, Temple of Isis, 51. The Kiosque, 53. The Outer Court of the
Temple of Isis in Autumn of 1902, 54. The Temple of Isis in the Autumn of 1902, 55.

PlTE, BERESFORD

Prior, Edward S.

57, 173,

204

Registration of Architects, The Legal

Rhodes Building, Capetown, S.A. See Current Architecture.

Frank Baggallay

Ricardo, Halsey

147

Royal Academy, Architecture at the

D. S. MacColl

St. Cross, The Hospital of. I.

Basil Champneys

1 1 1

Salmon and Son and Gillespie, James

Scandinavian Sailors’ Home, West India Docks. See Current Architecture.

195,

196

Shop-fronts. The Design of London

Howard Ince

Signs, Some Lombard Street

Drawings by Harold Falkner

Simpson, F. M.

87,

179

Smith, R. Elsey

Smith, The late T. Roger

Spiers, R. Phene ...

Stevens, Alfred

Stokes, Leonard

1 10, 122, 123, 124,

125, 126,

1 27

Strand Demolition, The: The Last of French’s ...

Drawing by Muirhead Bone ...

Strand Improvements, Further

Mark H. Judge

i33

Illustrations : — Plan, showing the various proposals for altering the frontage line, 133. View, looking East, from the
roof of “ Short’s,” 134. View, looking West, from the third floor of the Law Courts, 135.

Svendborg. Vicarage and Dispensary. See Current Architecture.

Tanner, H., Junr. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 203

Toddington, Lodges at. See Current Architecture.

Villa Madama and the “Vigna,” The. See Correspondence.

Walton, George ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 80, 81

Warren, Edward P. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 105

Welburn Hall, Yorks. See Current Architecture.

Wellington Monument at St. Paul’s with Alfred Stevens’s

Model in Position, The ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 38

Illustrations : — From the South, 38. From the south-west, 39. From the South east, 40. From the North-east, 41.
Westminster and the Improvement Scheme, The Demoli¬
tion of Old ... ... ... ... ... Edward P. Warren ... ... 105

William sb urgh Bridge, New York City. See Current Architecture.

EYRE AND SPOTT1SWOODE, KI5 MAJESTY’S PRINTERS, DOWNS PARK ROAD, HACKNEY, I ONDON, N.K.

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities.

The island whose name is called Iona, and
the ruins upon it, do not appeal merely to a love
of natural and artificial beauty. Both of these
are certainly to be found there in a high degree;
but the historical interest of the site surpasses
them. As the cradle of Scottish Christianity,
and as the nurse of the infant Scottish monarchy,
it is without rivals ; for Englishmen it should
have an interest hardly inferior to the grassy
outline of the vanished creek at Ebb’s Fleet, and
the little church with its old Roman work outside
the walls of Canterbury. The island was all this
because it was chosen as his base of operations by
an Irishman — a great missionary, a statesman, a
strong and wise and most lovable man, one who,
both in religion and in history, left his mark upon
the three kingdoms. It seems strange that it
should have needed rumours of “ restoration,”
and an actual re-roofing of its principal ruins to
stir up a somewhat languid attention to the island
on the part of Englishmen.

The name of it is called Iona, but that is not its
real name, which was I, Y, Hii, la, Eo, or Io, with
some other variations. In later times the name
of the man who had made it famous was often
added, and it became I-coluim-cille — “ I (or the
island) of Colum of the church,” and it is known
by that name in Gaelic to this day. Adamnan
speaks of it as Ioua insula — the “ loan island,” or
“ the island of Io.” But in later MSS. the u and n
are not clearly distinguished ; moreover, Iona or
Jona is Hebrew for Colum, Columba — a dove.
Through these two causes the island acquired its
present fanciful appellation.

St. Columba was one of the saints called “the
Twelve Apostles of Ireland.” The conversion of
that country was still incomplete, and the work
received a fresh impulse in the sixth century
through the foundation of monasteries in many
parts of the country by St. Columba and others,
as centres of missionary and pastoral work, and
to give object-lessons of what was meant by a
civilised and Christian community to the tribe in
whose territory they were founded, in a state of
society the insecurity and lawlessness and wicked¬
ness of which it is hard for us to realise. All of
these monasteries were also schools for those who
wished to learn, and many had the reputation and
did the work of universities ; they increased the
stock of books by copying the Bible and other
writings, and sometimes by original composition.
They were often on islands near the coast or in
lakes. Each monastery was not necessarily in¬
dependent. When small swarms or “ casts ” of

monks went out to establish another centre under
the direction of the saint who had founded the
earlier settlement or settlements, they were still
under his rule, exercised through praepositi, or by
visitation from the monastery where he lived, and
after his death by his “ heirs,” who were usually
of his family. Since the abbot was generally a
priest, such government seems to leave no room
for bishops. But the Irish Christians were, like
the rest of Christendom, episcopalians, and con¬
sequently they had bishops among their monks,
recognised as being of higher ecclesiastical rank,
for the ordination of other bishops and of priests,
though they exercised their functions under the
direction of the abbot, much as a retired bishop
can hold the position of a parish priest, though
he is still a bishop and may be commissioned to
act as such. It was this successful missionary
system that St. Columba, in or about the year
565, brought with him into Scotland, in the west
of which “ Scotti,” or Irishmen, already at least
nominally Christians, had been settled for about
sixty years ; their king, Conall, was a kinsman of
the saint.

The island now called Iona was admirably
suited as a base for the campaign against hea¬
thenism, since it lies not far from the mainland,
and in the middle of the inner Hebrides, and is
“ fertill and fruitful of corne and store, and guid
for fishing.” On the northern part of its east
coast the ground, sheltered by low hills on the
West, slopes gently towards the sea, looking
towards the brilliant red rocks of the Ross of
Mull across a strait, not often impassable, of about
a mile in width. A small stream, flowing out of
some marshy ground (which has been an artificial
lake or mill-pond) here runs into the sea, and
there are several bays and creeks where the
currachs framed of wood and wicker and covered
with hides (there is a gold model of one in the
British Museum), or the wooden boats could be
drawn up. Hereabouts the first monastery un¬
doubtedly was ; its exact site wall be considered
later.

First of all the site was enclosed with bounds —
a vallum of stones, or of earth and stones mixed
having a fence at the top. Inside this was the
church, doubtless of planks (or perhaps of split
tree-trunks, like the one of very ancient type at
Greensted in Essex) and roofed with reeds or
straw ; it had a sacristy attached to it. There
was a court, probably next to the church, and
beyond this came the cells — huts of wattles
covered with clay or turf. There was also a

VOL. xiv.— a 2

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities.

refectory, and a kitchen, near whose fire the
monks sometimes sat in cold weather. There may
probably have been a separate building to contain
the books, which were kept in leather cases,
separately, or sometimes two or more together,
with handles for hanging them on pegs. There
was a smithy, and no doubt a carpenter’s shop.
The abbot's house, standing on higher ground
than the rest, raised on joists (perhaps of two
stories) seems to have stood inside the vallum,
though it was apart from the other cells. There
was also provision for entertaining guests, pro¬
bably some more wattled huts. Outside the
vallum were the cow-house and barn, the kiln for
drying the corn before grinding it, and now or
later a water-mill, though at first querns may
have been used. The whole establishment was
a self-supporting civilised community of Christian
men.

How St. Columba and his Irish friends and monks

converted Brude, the king of the Piets, whose
palace was near Inverness; how he “ordained”
Aedhan king of the Scots, and helped to get him
made independent of the king of Ireland ; how
the saint and his successors spread Christianity in
Scotland, founding subordinate monasteries as
outposts in suitable places; how the Abbey, less
than forty years after its founder’s death, had its
“sphere of influence” still further enlarged so as
to take in Northumbria and then Mercia as well ;
what sort of men these Irish monks were for
energy, goodness, and utter disinterestedness — all
this is recorded by Adamnan and Bede, in Irish
and in Church histories.

But in 664 the Synod of Whitby decided
against the Irish reckoning of Easter Sunday and
the Irish tonsure, and Bishop Colman returned
to Iona. Later these burning questions spread
to the parent monastery itself, and caused a
schism there, till the whole community finally

MAP OF TH F, EAST SIDE OF IONA,

SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE CATHEDRAL BUILDINGS.

Iona : Its Churches and A ntiquities .

THE CATHEDRAL BUILDINGS FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.

Iona: Its CJuirches and Antiquities.

agreed to conform ; meanwhile, in 7 17, Nectan,
king of the Piets, converted to the more wide¬
spread customs, “ drove out the family of la (the
Columban monks in his dominions) across the
backbone of Britain.” In 802 the monastery was
burnt by the Danes, and within the next few
years that at Kells was built (or re-built), that
the headship of the Columban monasteries might
be transferred to it. The “ temple ” at Kells was
probably of stone ; and it is likelv that when the
monastery at Hii was built up again (as it cer¬
tainly was shortly afterwards) its church at least
would be a stone building, so as to limit the loss
if the Abbey were burnt once more. From its
position, it was greatly exposed to pirates, and
suffered accordingly from the Danes; in 825, for
instance, St. Blaithmac was killed because he
refused to show where the shrine of the saint was
hidden — for his bones, at first buried, had been
enshrined, no doubt before the end of the eighth
century. This shrine was on several occasions
carried to Ireland. In 850 a part of the relics
was transferred to Dunkeld, for the great church
which Kenneth MacAlpin was building there.
We hear of the arm being at Iona in later times,
and Durham also claimed a part. The rest were
certainly believed to be at Downpatrick in Ire¬
land ; the dust of his body of course remained in
the grave — somewhere on Iona.

Space will not allow us to follow in detail the vari¬
ous notices of the monastery, what English, Scotch,
Irish and Norse kings either came there for peni¬
tence orwere brought there forburial ; what changes
took placein its constitution ; orwhatlinks still often
connected it with the Church of Ireland. Shortly
before 1093 Queen Margaret re-built and re-en-
dow’ed the monastery, then in a ruinous condition.
In 1097, it is said, Magnus, king of Norway,
“opened the smaller temple of Kolumba, and did
not go in, but soon barred the door and forbade
that anyone should be so bold as to enter that
sacred building ; which command was afterwards
obeyed.” In the eleventh and twelfth centuries
the O’Brolchans, a family which certainly had at
some time a connection with Iona, appear in the
Irish annals. One was “ chief mason of Ireland ” ;
others were bishops, one of whom, “ heir of
Columcille” (head of the Columban monasteries)
carried out great buildings at Derry where he was
abbot, and was offered the Abbacy of Hii, but had
to decline it. In 1202, “ Domhnall Ua Brol-
chain, prior et excelsus senior, obiit,” but we are
not told of what monastery he was prior. In 1174
“ Maelpatrick O’Banan, bishop of Connor and
Dalaradia (Down), died at Hi Coluimcille ” ; —
there is (or was) a stone in Reilig Orain which
bore an inscription asking a prayer for a man of
that name. The alliance with the Irish Church

(renewed in the middle of the twelfth century, when
the island was freed from the Norwegians) comes
out very clearly in the opposition to the founda¬
tion by Reginald, Lord of the Isles, of a Benedic¬
tine Abbey on Iona in 1203 ; in which year “ the
monastery built by Cellach in the midst of the
island of Hy is thrown down by the clergy of
northern Ireland, and Awley O'Freel (he was de¬
scended from St. Columba’s brother) is elected
abbot.” But there is a charter of December, 1203,
addressed by the Pope to Celestinus, Abbot of St.
Columba, of the island of Hy, and his brethren,
taking the monastery under Papal protection, and
ordaining that the monastic order which has been
instituted there according to the rule of St. Bene¬
dict should be preserved inviolate for ever, and
confirming to them the place in which the mon¬
astery is situated, with the churches, islands, and
lands belonging to it in the Western Isles. How
the quarrel was settled, whether, for instance, the
two establishments were combined by consent on
the old site, must be a matter of conjecture. But
certainly the Benedictine rule prevailed, and the
specially Celtic character of the community dis¬
appears. Henceforth it is a monastery of the
ordinary type, revered for its associations and its
relics, renowned for its time-honoured burial-
place, well-endowed — when it could get its rents
— but not altogether secure from plunder by
reckless adventurers of the rough clans that sur¬
rounded it.

In 1506 the island was transferred from the
Bishopric of Dunkeld, in some sense its daughter-
foundation, to the Bishopric of the Isles; and the
Abbey Church became the Cathedral of that bishop,
“ quhil (until) his principale kirk in the lie of Man
be recouerit fra Inglismen.” The last abbot — the
John M’Kinnon whose monument is in the Cathe¬
dral, with a blank left after millesimo quingentesimo
for the exact year of his death — was apparently
appointed bishop. It is to this period that the
Bishop’s House is to be attributed, and perhaps
the latest pre-Reformation work in the church.
In 1561 the Act was passed “for demolishing all
the abbeys of monks and friars ” ; but this was at
least not full}’ carried out at Iona.

“ Ane reuerend father in God,” holding “the
Bishopric of Ylis and Ecolmekyll ” is mentioned
in various documents during the latter part of
this century — the office was preserved after a
fashion, but there was no bishop regularly con¬
secrated till 1611. In 1609 Andrew Knox, the
bishop, as James I.’s special commissioner, held a
court here of the Chiefs of the Isles, at which they
agreed to have “ the rwynous kirkis repairit,” and
to the reform of religion in general and the ob¬
servance of Christian morals, though their good
intentions did not last long. In 1615 the Chapter

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities

IONA CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

Iona : Its Churches and Antiqirities.

of the Isles was restored, and later a conge d’elire
was addressed to it. In 1635 Charles I. wrote to
John Lesley, bishop of Raphoe (the Irish con¬
nection is persistent), stating that “ Andro late
bischop of Rapho at his transportation from the
bischoprick of Vies did without just caus or any
warrant from our late royall father or ws carie
with him two of the principal bells that wer
in Icolmkill and place them in some of the
churches of Rapho,” and requiring him to deliver
these to the present bishop of the Isles for the use
of the said Cathedral Church, which the king had
ordered to be repaired. Charles also ordered that
£400 should be paid from the Exchequer by
instalments for the great cost of this, which the
bishop could not afford : this is not surprising ;
one of his lawless flock, Maclean of Duart and
Morvern, had lately deprived him of the island
itself. But the downfall of the bishops came
within two or three years; and it is doubtful
whether much was done to the building, which
was certainly more or less ruined in 1688. It was
repaired in a most conservative manner-— not be¬
fore this was necessary — by Mr. Robert Anderson
in 1874 and 1875, for the Duke of Argyle.

Turning from this sketch of the Abbey’s history,
in which I have tried to include those notices
which bear upon its buildings, the first question
that meets us is whether the original monastery
was on the same site as the present ruins. Of
course we need not look for any traces of the
wood or wattle buildings, though there might
be remains of the vallum which surrounded them.
It is urged that the usual presumption that the
monastery has been continued on much the same
spot does not here apply. St. Columba’s bones
had been enshrined before the Danes burnt it in
802, and would make any site holy where they
were kept; and when the Abbey was re-built (pro¬
bably in part of stone) a few years afterwards, it
might well have been moved under the protection
of Cnoc nan Carnan, which has certainly at some
time been fortified as a refuge. This of course
merely shows that it might have been moved — not
that it was not always on the present excellent
site. But it is also claimed that certain state¬
ments in Adamnan’s “Life of St. Columba ”
(Book I., ch. 45) prove that it was in the saint’s
lifetime on another site, by Cladh an Diseart
(otherwise called Cladh Iain), about 400 yards
north-east of the Cathedral. Adamnan tells us
that Ernan, St. Columba’s uncle, being ill, was
brought back from the dependent monastery
of Hinba, and that the saint went towards the
harbour to meet him, while Ernan made his way
up from the boat. “ But when there was between
the two an interval of about twenty-four paces,
stopped by sudden death, before the saint saw his

face in life, he fell dying to the ground. . . .
Wherefore in the same place a cross was fixed
before the door of the kiln, and another cross
likewise where the saint stopped when Ernan
died, and stands fixed there to this day.”

The harbour (the position of which Adamnan
does not settle) would probably be one of those
to the South and South-east — Port Ronan or Port
na Muintir — and we may suppose that the road
between it and the monastery crossed the mill-
stream at a point near the kiln. Now the ruins
of a kiln were found close to where the mill-
stream runs near the end of the supposed vallum,
a short distance north-west of the cathedral, and
those of a barn to the south of the kiln. Thus
Ernan was walking up from the south or south¬
east, and, since St. Columba nearly met him close
to the kiln, the saint must have been coming from
the north. If then he came from his cell, this
must have been somewhat to the north — near
Clachanach. Now just to the north of the ruined
kiln is a spot known as AM Crossan More (“The
Great Crosses”), where “ tradition records that
two large crosses stood.” The vallum is also held
to indicate the old site of the monastery.

The remains of the kiln (for drying the corn
before grinding it) are of course an illustration
rather than a proof, for it is not at all necessary
that the same building, or the same site for it,
should have been kept when the monastery was
re-built. But it is quite probable (though not
certain) that the monks had from early days a
water-mill, the use of which was known in Ireland
long before this time : such a mill must have been
at this spot, where it afterwards was ; and it would
be convenient to have the kiln near it. How¬
ever, passing over this, there are other considera¬
tions which tend to make the proof less cogent.
We do not know for certain which the harbour
was. If it was Port na Muintir, St. Columba did
not (on this theory) go the straight way, though
the road may have led him round. Nor do we
know certainly whether he came from his cell — he
was not always there. As to the “ Great Crosses,”
which seem to clinch the matter, we cannot be
certain that they are those erected on this occa¬
sion. There are a good many, whole and in frag¬
ments, still left, and there must have been more, of
various dates (like that which gave its name to Port
a Chrossain, “ Harbour of the little Cross ”), com¬
memorating various persons and events, and very
probably marking boundaries, like those which
crop up around Glendalough. We hear of one
again in the same Life (Book III., ch. 23), “ fixed
in a mill-stone, and standing to this day” on the
edge of the road, marking the spot where St. Co¬
lumba sat down weary at the half-way ( media via)
on his return from the barn upon the last day of

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities .

his life. This can hardly be identical with either
of those already mentioned, which, if the kiln and
the barn were then near a water-mill, would not
have been anything like half-way to the proposed
site near Cladh an Diseart. As to other notes of
place in Adamnan, they are inconclusive. We
are told that the saint on the day just mentioned,
of which we not unnaturally have a full and most
touching description, “ascended a little hill ( monti -
cellum) rising above the monastery,” to bless it.
There are small hills or mounds rising above all
the possible sites— and we can never tell in
Adamnan how far his diminutives are merely
ornamental. “The mountain which rises above
the monastery at a distance” (eminus ; Book I.,
ch. 30) obviously cannot fix the site exactly.
The barn was “very near” ( proximum ) to the
monastery — yet the saint, as we have seen, had to
sit down in returning from it. But he was a
dying man, and a distance of something like four
hundred yards is difficult to reconcile with the
description “very near.” In any case, the sup¬
posed vallum gives us little help. It is by no
means an easily intelligible or straightforward
earthwork. As it stands, it encloses no site, and
shows only a slight and doubtful inclination to¬
wards the sea at its north end.

There is further a passage, thought to bear on
the question, in the preface (contained in a MS. of
the eleventh century) affixed to the A Uics Prosator —
a hymn attributed to St. Columba — which in giv¬
ing an alternative (and quite unhistorical) story of
the way in which the saint came to write it, says :
“ He takes upon him his burden from a certain
stone that was in the church, i.e. Blathnat its
name, and it still exists, and upon it there is made
division in the refectory.” Another later MS.
gives a similar account. This stone Dr. Skene
(' Celtic Scotland, Vol. II. p. 98, etc.) identifies
with a huge ice-borne boulder-stone on the sug¬
gested site, which is something like eleven paces
long, and five or more across. It stands five to six
feet high, and it is most difficult to think that it
can ever have been used as a table by a reasonable
person like St. Columba. But, if this is the stone
which the recorder of the story had in mind, it
may point to some recollection of the early
monastery having been on this site, though this
stone was certainly not near the refectory of the
eleventh century. There is, or was, a tradition
that St. Columba was buried under this boulder.

A little to the south-east of this, between it and
the sea, is the Cladh an Diseart — -the “ Cemetery
of the Desert or Hermitage.” There is the
ground-plan still remaining of a tiny oblong
church of rough stone (ten paces by five, outside
measurement) such as are not uncommon in Ire¬
land ; south-west of this are two upright stones

which had another stone laid across them, form¬
ing an entrance of a very primitive kind to the
enclosure, of which other faint traces are visible ;
close by the church is a well. Within this enclo¬
sure “ was found the fragment of a cross, on
which there was distinctly seen the crucified
figure.” Of course there is nothing startling in
all this. Every great Irish monastery had its
hermitage, but this may have been chosen or
continued as its site from old associations.
Bishop Pococke, who visited the island in 1760,
speaking of the upright stones “ with a stone laid
across at top, and some other stones near it set up
on end,” adds, “ which they say were the first
buildings St. Columb erected here.” His church,
as we know, was at first of wood ; but what is said
above might be true of the enclosure, and it is
right to mention this tradition as a part of the
available evidence; though, as regards all these
local accounts, it is of course usually impossible
now to say whether they come down from early
times, or have been made up more recently to ex¬
plain remains — or natural objects — -which seemed
to call for explanation.

About 150 yards from this spot, and within
twenty or thirty yards of the boulder above-
mentioned, was found — brought there to close
a drain — a heart-shaped stone engraved with a
cross, which is believed by some to be the stone
pillow used by St. Columba, of which Adamnan,
at the end of the seventh century, speaks as
“ standing by his grave to this day as a sort of
monumental epitaph ” (Book I., ch. 23). It is now
preserved in the Cathedral. Its claims are diluted
by the discovery, near the site of Cill Chainnich, of
a very similar stone, and others somewhat like these
exist elsewhere. It may be the monument of some¬
one ; it may possibly have been placed in a grave ;
it may conceivably be what is claimed for it.
Whatever it is, there is, of course, a certain pro¬
bability that it had not been moved so very far
from where it was originally placed.

On the other hand the position of Reilig Orain
tells decidedly against a change of site. There
was a cemetery of reputation for the burial of the
great on Iona much before 800 A.D., and this is
not likely to have been far distant from the Abbey.
The site of it cannot have been lost, and it is not
likely that it was changed. Nor is it easy to see
why the original monastery should have been
placed away from the stream — more especially if
a watermill wras used from the first.

Lastly, the question of the original site affects
and is affected by the remains of a tiny chapel
near the Cathedral, to the North-west of the Nave.
The east end of this abuts on the Cloisters; but
westwards its side walls are prolonged a few
inches, as is common in very early Irish churches

Iona : Its Churches and Antiquities.

i o

THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE WEST.

— for instance, at St. Caimin’s on Holy Island,
Lough Uerg. This is very probably “ the smaller
temple of Kolumba ” already mentioned in con¬
nection with Magnus of Norway. It contains two
tombs at the east end, built with slabs at the
sides (the covering stones are gone), with space
for a priest to stand between them at an altar,
which would be a small square erection of stone.
West of the chapel is a very small enclosure,
containing tombstones. In the west wall of
the enclosure stands what is left of a Cross,
not in the middle, but facing the tomb on

the South, which till a late period in the
Middle Ages counted as the right side of the
altar, the place of honour. Dr. Skene thinks that
this was the spot where St. Blaithmac had con¬
cealed the shrine from the Danes, which was
afterwards marked by the erection of a chapel,
where the shrine was kept. It may be so ; but
this hardly accounts for the “ cist ” ; the shrine
was hidden “in a grave hollowed in the ground,
under thick turf.’’ At all events Martin, writing
in 1703, says : —

“ Near to the West end of the Church in a little

THE CHOIR.

Iona : Its Churches and Antiquities.

Cell lies Columbus his Tomb,” and that, on his
reminding the inhabitants of the lines which said
that he was buried in Ireland, “ the Natives of
Jona seem’d very much displeas’d, and affirm’d
that the Irish who said so were impudent Lyars ;
that Columbus was once buried in this Place,”
and never removed to Ireland — -which last state¬
ment of theirs was much too comprehensive,
whatever may finally have become of his relics.
Close by this chapel was the “ Black Stone ” (com¬
monly called the “ Black Stones”) of Iona ; on which
oaths were sworn, and about which Wordsworth
wrote a sonnet. It was destroyed by a madman
early in the last century ; but, from the descrip¬
tions remaining, was a piece of dark grey marble,
about five feet high by two broad, having on it in
relief the figure of an ecclesiastic investments;
this “ tapered from the shoulder to a point at the
top,” which suggests a mitre, worn in later times
by the abbot of Iona. There can be little doubt
that it was an image of St. Columba, and its
presence here (and not in the Cathedral) is an
additional mark of some special sanctity in this
spot. This tangled and difficult question of the
original site must now be left to the reader, who
will find the arguments in favour of its change
stated also in Dr. Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Vol. II.,
and in the Rev. Archibald Macmillan’s Iona.

Among the buildings which may be attributed
to the early stone monastery, there are, round the
Cathedra], “ sundrie uther chapells,” which, dif¬
fering from it in orientation, while they agree
among themselves, seem to date from an earlier
period — they would hardly have been thus varied
from the principal church if they had been
founded after it was built. North of the Choir,
and north-east of the Chapter House, is a chapel,
measuring 38 ft. by 21ft., whose walls are nearly
entire. The tracery and other details are of a
later type ; but, unless it represents a very old
church largely rebuilt, it seems impossible to
account for the difference of orientation which,
as compared with the Cathedral close by, is very
obvious. North of this again is a larger build¬
ing of like orientation, showing only its ground
plan. And some little distance to the South
are the side walls of St. Mary’s Chapel, half filled
with debris : it would be a good deed to clear out
this little ruin. If the present Cathedral were
removed, these “ chapells,” with that of St. Oran,
would form such a group of little churches as
are to be found at Clonmacnoise and elsewhere in
Ireland.

Before coming to the Cathedral, something
should be said of the Rcilig (Drain. The only
building now standing there is the chapel just
mentioned, which has been connected with the
restorations at Iona due to Queen Margaret late

I I

in the eleventh century. But there is nothing to
prove that it is of that date, and the western
doorway shows somewhat elaborate Romanesque
decoration (though much ruined by the weather)
which could hardly have penetrated into these
parts till late in the twelfth century ; there is no
sign that this doorway is a later insertion.
Moreover, one of the two little slits of windows
(at the east end of the north and south walls)
is pointed.

There are some apparently very ancient tomb¬
stones, without inscription, which are now pre¬
served in the chapel ; but the sculptured stones
on Iona range mainly from the fourteenth to the
sixteenth centuries. Some either have a date
attached, or can be approximately dated from the
persons whose names are attached to them by
tradition — supposing this to be correct. But
early forms of ornament continued at Iona
(doubtless in connection with a local school of
sculpture, whose work appears, for instance, at
Innishail in Loch Awe, at Kilchrenan, and Dal-
mally) contrary to rules prevailing in England
and elsewhere ; and new styles of armour and of
weapons did not (except in that advanced clan,
the M’Leods, and a M’lan) penetrate to this
remote island, any more than architectural styles
did with any certainty or completeness. The
Chapel of St. Oran was in former times not the
only building in this cemetery. “ Within this
ile of Colmkill,” says Dean Monro, writing in
1549, “ there is ane sanctuary also or kirkzaird
callit in Erische Religoran, quhilk is a very fair
kirkzaird, and weill biggit about with staine and
lyme : into this sanctuary ther is three tombes of
stane formit like little chapels, with ane braid
gray marble or quhin staine in the gavill of ilk
ane of the tombes. In the staine of the ane
tombe there is wretten in Latin letters, Tuymdus
Regum Scotiae, that is, The tombe or grave of the
Scotts Kinges. Within this tombe, according to
our Scotts and Erische cronickels, ther layes
fortey-eight crouned Scotts kings, throughe the
quhilk this ile hesbeine richlie dotat be the Scotts
kings, as we have said. The tombe on the south
syde forsaid hes this inscription, Tumulus Regum
Hyberniae, that is, The tombe of the Irland
kinges : for we have in our auld Erische Cronic-
kells that there wes foure Irland kings eirdit i
the said tombe. Upon the north syde of our
Scotts tombe, the inscriptione beares, Tumulus
Rcgum N orwegiae," where eight kings of Norway
were buried. “ Within this sanctuary also lyes
the maist pairt of the Lords of the iles with ther
lineage. Twa Clan Lynes with ther lynage,
M’Kynnon and M’Guare with ther lynages, with
sundrie uthers inhabitants of the hail iles, becaus
this sanctuarey was wont to be the sepulture of

Iona : Its Churches and Antiquities.

i 2

the best men of all the iles, and als of our kings
as we have said ; becaus it was the maist honor¬
able and ancient place that was in Scotland in
thair dayes, as we reid.” Again, Martin, writing
in 1703, says, “ On the South side of the Church
mention'd above (St. Oran’s Chapel) is the Burial
Place in which the Kings and Chiefs of Tribes are
buried, and over them a Shrine ; there was an
Inscription, giving an account of each particular
Tomb, but Time has worn them off.” And Pen¬
nant, speaking of the year 1772, says, “ of these
celebrated tombs we could discover nothing more
than certain slight remains, that were built in a
ridged form and arched within, but the inscrip¬
tions were lost.”

These three chapels, standing side by side, are
now represented only by a single corner-stone,
not in its original position, if their site was to the
south of the chapel still standing, as it is described.
To anyone who has seen such small early Irish
buildings as “ St. Kevin's Kitchen ” at Glenda-
lough, or St. Flannan’s Church at Killaloe, their
being “ built in a ridged form and arched within,”
suggests a high stone roof with a rough barrel
vault below. The close connection of Iona with
Ireland would make this copying easy ; but a
similar construction is also very common in
Scotch churches after 1400.

No tombstones certainly connected with the
kings mentioned remain (though there is one,
without inscription, said to be that of a king of
France), and it is likely that there should have
been much turning out of earlier monuments in
favour of later and less distinguished tenants.
But the M’ Leans and M ’Quarries and M’Kin-
nons had special claims on the royal cemetery
and on Iona, being descended from the royal
family of the Irish colony, and therefore con¬
nected with St. Columba — -as King Edward VII.
also is, more remotely.

We now come to that very confused architec¬
tural problem, the Abbey Church or Cathedral,
which consists of a Nave and Transepts without
aisles, and a Choir having an aisle on the South,
and on the North a sort of aisle in two doors; the
eastern part of the Choir stands free. First of all,
there is no doubt that at some time after the
Reformation (possibly about 1635) the part of
the building to be retained in use was reduced ;
the Nave was abandoned, and a wall built filling
up the western arch of the Tower, very possibly in
part with materials taken from the Nave walls.
This giving up part of a church where the avail¬
able resources had, from whatever cause, become
inadequate for the maintenance of the whole, is
familiar to those who know the coast of Norfolk
and Suffolk. The western bay of the South Choir-
aisle was probably walled off at the same time,

and perhaps the same process was carried, or was
being carried, further. So far the matter is toler¬
ably simple ; it will be convenient next to see
what parts of the complete building can reason¬
ably be assigned to particular periods.

First of all there will probably be no conflict of
opinion as to the North Transept. Its eastern
wall, built thick enough to carry a passage within
it above, is supported by an arcade below, the
side arches of which (doubtless once holding
altars) contain each a round-headed window,
while the centre arch, lower than its fellows,
forms a niche in which there was a seated figure.
There is here plenty of detail (though it has
suffered from time and weather), and its character
is late Norman, or “ transition.” The arch open¬
ing on to the Tower is pointed ; on looking closely
at it one finds that an additional arch has been
inserted, and that the piers have been cased, the
original arch and piers being more or less visible.
The piers outside are in section very similar to
the early ones which they enclose, but of a more
developed form.

On the other hand the Tower (which in a print
of 1774 is shown to have had a gabled roof rising
from inside the parapet, the masonry of the north
side, forming a right-angled triangle, still standing
at that date) is, in its present form, certainly late.
This is plain on the outside from its square win¬
dows with late tracery — in one case showing the
curious but effective whirligig or “ catherine-
wheel ” arrangement, of “ flamboyant ” type,
which is to be found in the fourteenth century,
but is a very prominent feature in the windows of
some Scotch fifteenth century churches. And
inside one should notice the curious stone pillars
or balusters looking like turned wood (such as are
found in pre-Norman work in England) support¬
ing a straight arch. Though, of course, it is not
necessary to conclude that there could have been
no tower there before (so that we are not com¬
pelled to place the strengthening of the piers
below at the date of the upper storey, in its
present condition), the Tower, as it stands, seems
undoubtedly to be of late date, with a reproduc¬
tion or imitation of some early features.

This tendency to turn backwards for models, in
the absence of true progress, appears to be shown
too in the Sacristy or North Choir-aisle. The
upper window of this has a triangular head, with
dog-tooth ornaments on the inside. Such straight¬
sided arches belong properly to very early work,
as in various Irish churches and Round Towers,
and in the tower at Bosham in Sussex, of a time
long before the thirteenth century to which the
ornamentation properly belongs. The combina¬
tion is somewhat similar to that in the Tower, and
seems to indicate a late date, when invention had

Iona : Its Churches and A ntiquities .

ARCHWAYS TO CHAPTER HOUSE.

almost ceased, and older forms were imitated
more or less promiscuously. A striking instance
of this is to be found at Holycross Abbey, in
Tipperary, where a round-headed doorway and
an ogee arch fitting into it, are decorated with
“ billet ” ornament. The walls of this Sacristy
are at the east incompletely, at the west not at all
bonded into those of the Choir, and this part of
the building appears to be, in its present form, an
afterthought — instead of a complete aisle, as was
originally intended, meeting the North Transept.

Between this aisle and the Choir is a pillar sup¬
porting a pointed arch at either side, which,
though now built up, were obviously meant to open
into the upper storey of the aisle, to which a pas¬
sage led, or was intended to lead (in continuation
of that through the wall of the north transept)
from the Dormitory. The mouldings of these
arches are of thirteenth century type, deco¬
rated with “ dog-tooth ” ornament. The capital
of the pillar has pointed leaves, of bay-leaf form,
running up it side by side, closely resembling two
varieties of “ transition ” capitals at Kelso.

It will be convenient here to digress for a
moment to the Chapter House, separated from the
North Transept by a room with a fire-place, and
standing east and west in two compartments
divided by a pillar carrying two round arches.

DOOR FROM SACRISTY TO CHOIR.

[ 4

Iona :

Its Churches and Antiquities.

IONA CATHEDRAL. CAPITALS.

(Photographed from the Originals.)

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities.

9 a

The mouldings of these and the carving of the
capital on the outer or western side are, respec¬
tively, practically identical with those of the
arches and pillar on the North of the Choir, though
the inner side of the capital has very different
carving. The inner compartment has a stone
arcade forming seats round its wall, and for a

a fine door, with trefoil head and mouldings of
distinctly thirteenth century form, opening into the
Sacristy on the lower floor (p. 13). The capitals are
not similar to those described above, but bear a
considerable resemblance in their carving to those
of the pillars and responds, in the South Aisle, to
the inner or eastern side of the capital in the

roof a flattish barrel-vault. The walls of the room
which this supports are incompletely bonded into
those of the Dormitory (or whatever the room on
the upper floor was), which continued the line of
the North Transept. This, of course, suggests that
the upper storey of the projecting part is a later
addition.

Returning to the Chancel, we find on the North

Chapter House, and to the capitals of the north¬
east and south-east parts of the Crossing, some of
which are of “ cushion ” form. All these seem to
show direct or indirect Byzantine influence ; they
are carved with surface ornament — of foliage,
strange animals, and of scenes, some of them from
the Bible, the subjects chosen being not unlike
those treated on some Irish Crosses, for instance,

IONA CATHEDRAL. CAPITALS.

( Photographed from Casts in the School of Applied Art, Edinburgh.)

(Photographed from the Cast in the School of Applied Art, Edinburgh.)

Iona : Its Churches and A ntiquities

VOL. XIV. — B

IONA CATHEDRAL

1 8

Iona : Its Churches and Antiquities

VIEW FROM NORTH TRANSEPT.

THE SOUTH AISLE.

IONA CATHEDRAL

1 9

Iona : Its Churches and A ntiquities.

at Monasterboice. The sculpture seldom suggests
any constructional purpose, and in some cases is
arranged in panels. Both it and the form of the
pillars should, according to the ordinary canons,
be of early date, but there appear to be parallels
in late Scotch work, which tends to recur to early
models, and it must be said that the carving on
some of the later tombstones preserved here is in
panels, and that some of the foliage mentioned
above resembles that on the stem of Mac! hr, gone's
(M’Kinnon’s) Cross, of 1489. Whatever its
date, the carving is in some parts beautiful, in
others curious, and gains individuality from a
distinct Celtic feeling visible in it, which comes
out quaintly in the treatment of the animals’
tails.

Here it should be mentioned that Dr. Reeves
(Adamnan’s “ Life of St. Columba,” 1857 edition,
p. 409) says : — “ On the capital of the south-east
column, under the tower, near the angle of the
south transept and choir of the cathedral in Hy,
are the remains of the inscription, donaldvs
obrolchan fecit hoc opvs, in Lombardic
letters.” This record, confirmed by other wit¬
nesses, seems unquestionable. We have seen
that the Abbey had dealings with the O’Brol-
chan family, and the inscription suggests Domh-
nall Ua Brolchain, of whom we have already
heard, who died in 1202. But his connection
with Iona is uncertain ; and since an O’Brolchan
is found in Islay in 1548 (not to mention various
members of the family in Ulster) it may of course
refer to some monk or workman of whose exist¬
ence we are not otherwise aware.

The South Aisle is crossed by curious segments
of arches, like flying buttresses, resting on the
ground and propping the arcade. It opens into
the Transept by a semicircular arch, and on to the
Choir by three pointed arches. All these seem to
be of the fourteenth century, or later ; the pillars
and their carving have been already mentioned.
The Sedilia and Piscina are covered with beauti¬
ful “ Celtic ” carving, much decayed. To the
west of these is a large oblong block or base of
masonry, which needs explanation, unless per¬
haps it was for the exhibition of relics.

The roof was of wood. The walls of the church
were plastered inside. The small Clerestory win¬
dows stand directly over the pillars, and there are
short buttresses under many of the windows, as
well as elsewhere ; these are of thirteenth century
form. The tracery remaining is all of a late
type. The western doorway of the Nave has
no shafts, but the mouldings, of thirteenth century
form, are continued round it. The Nave in general
is much ruined, but, like some other parts of the
church, seems to show signs of re-building.

In the Refectory, north of the Cloisters, an

obvious change of plan meets us. Apparently
it was at first on the ground floor; there are the
remains of a fine doorway, probably of the
thirteenth century, leading into it from the
Cloister. It was then moved upstairs, a low
ground-floor room being contrived beneath it,
and access given by a stair still in part remain¬
ing. The Cloisters again, the arcade of which
had mouldings of two forms and of thirteenth
century type, show signs of alteration, since, of
the arches thrown across them diagonally at the
corners, two interfere with doorways. It is un¬
necessary to describe the remaining buildings, the
use of which is not beyond question, except one
at the extreme North, which has had a stream of
water brought through it from' the mill-burn.

The masonry is similar throughout the walls of
the buildings ; these are of red granite, which
gives them a magnificent rich colour ; the blocks
have been brought to some sort of face, but not
squared, and the intervals are filled in with smaller
stones and slates. The buttresses and corners are
regularly coursed.

In attempting to estimate the dales at which
the Abbey was built, it seems clear that much
work was done about 1200 a.d. and in the thirteenth
century ; while the Tower and Sacristy in their pre¬
sent form, and the tracery of the windows are
late. The first period corresponds (partly at
least) to the commencement and early vigour of the
Benedictine foundation ; the latter may coincide
with Iona’s becoming the Cathedral of the Bishop
of the Isles. But it is impossible to say what old
capitals and even mouldings may have been used

IONA CATHEDRAL. VIEW FROM WEST
SHOWING RESTORATION.

B 2

Iona : Its Churches and A nti equities.

IONA CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

AFTER RESTORATION.

again in later building, whether capitals set up at
one time may not have been carved at another, or
to what extent, especially in a spot so isolated,
old work may have been imitated — of this latter
process there are here some unmistakable in¬
stances ; architectural ideas too might have been
introduced by strangers from almost anywhere at
any time. In a place so far removed from the
general movement of architectural style much
must be uncertain and disputable ; which forms
an additional argument (if one were needed)
against attempts at “ restoration.”

The most recent, and, it is devoutly to be hoped,
the last scene in the history of the building belongs
to the year just past. The work has fortunately
been limited to the re-roofing of the Choir, Tower,
and South Aisle, the glazing of their windows, and
the partial restoration of the part last mentioned ;
this could hardly have been avoided if it was to
receive a roof. The “raw” look of the timber
inside will no doubt wear off some day. But it
is a pity that the slates — copies in size of those
which once covered the roof — are smoother, so
that they cannot readily cover themselves with
lichen and moss and become harmonious with the
rest of the building. Fortunately the old work of
the Choir and Transepts and the arcade of the
South Aisle is still untouched, and the roof, whether
beautiful or not, will help to preserve this and
the monuments from the weather. As regards
protection against a greater danger, perhaps the
very partial success (in general opinion) of this
“ restoration ” may be a blessing in disguise — a
warning against more ambitious attempts, which,
in the case of a unique and enigmatical building
like this, would be simply inexcusable ; there is no
local want of church accommodation, and the
island can never again be a centre of religious
work, as in St. Columba s time. Yet the danger
from the terms of the Trust is still there — the

Trustees are bound, if they have the
money, to make the church available
for divine service, which may mean
much. It is to be hoped that the
Scottish public will defend this most
interesting building in the only way
open to them — by withholding their
contributions. Some of the Scotsman’s
correspondents obviously need to be
reminded that they cannot have it both
ways — that it is impossible to make an
old building as good as new without
renewing it in parts, which in this
unique church is likely to involve some
irreparable falsification and loss.

Only a few words can be said about some of the
remaining antiquities on the island. Among the

ST. MARTIN’S CROSS.

Iona: Its Churches and Antiquities.

Crosses, several of which remain either whole or
in part, that of St. Martin, standing west of the
nave, is in outline and proportions and in the
carving of its eastern face perhaps the most
beautiful Celtic Cross in existence. On its
western side, which is carved with scenes in
panels, nothing but lichen is now visible, a sight
more gratifying to a painter than to an anti¬
quarian, though figures are not the strong point
of the Celtic Cross. Maclean’s Cross, on the
high road, is inferior, but not specially early.

Beyond the mill-stream, north-east of the
Abbey buildings, is the Bishop’s House. In
Sacheverel’s time (1688) it was, though roofless,
otherwise entire, “and consisted of a large Hall
open to the Roof, a Chamber I suppose he us’d a
ladder to get into, and under the Chamber a
Buttery .... the whole was certainly
very mean.”

A paved way “of a hard red stone,” leading
from the monastery past Maclean’s Cross to
the Nunnery, formed the main street of the Bails
Mor, the “ great town” or “ considerable citie ”
(for those parts), such as often grew up under
the shadow of religious houses, and sometimes
decayed with them, the “ports and streets” of
which were still visible in 1693 and later. The
Nunnery is a beautiful and interesting ruin of
“ transition ” architecture, bearing considerable
resemblance to the work of that style in the

abbey. It was built about 1203, but may have
been in part “ restored ” later. The Choir has
been vaulted, and the east end of the North Aisle
retains its vault. Here too the Clerestory
windows stand over the piers, not above the
arches. North of the Nunnery Church is an ob¬
long building, of slightly different orientation,
which was the “ paroche-kirke,” of the island.
Of Cill Chainnich — sister of the greater Kilkenny
in Ireland, the church of St. Cainnech, the friend
and fellow-worker of St. Columba, which stood
close to the present Established Church— the
last stones were removed in the past century.
A mile west of the cathedral, probably connected
with it by the causeway which crossed the Lochan
Mor, are some traces of the “ Cell of the Culdees,”
who represent a special development of monasti-
cism (not a “ Church ” or form of Christianity),
which was mainly confined to Scotland and
Ireland. Port a Churraich, on the south coast
of the island, where St. Columba is said to have
first landed, is marked by a mound “three score
of foots in length, which was the exact length of
the curachan or ship.” Here are also some
curious cairns, the origin of which is — like some
other points bearing on the antiquities of the
Island — uncertain. A. C. Champneys.

Note. — We are indebted for the use of the photographs
reproduced on pp. 13 and 17 to Mr. A. Ritchie, and for the photo¬
graphs after restoration to Mr. W. K. Bryson.

THE NUNNERY NAVE FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

The Exe Bridge , Exeter

THE EXE BRIDGE, EXETER. TO BE DEMOLISHED.

The Exe Bridge, Exeter.

Soon it will be difficult to find in this
-country any relic of the ages before steam-civili¬
sation. For long time ecclesiastical authorities
have been busy scraping and scouring the churches,
and smartening them with much glass and brass;
lately the county councils have been waking up to
the beauty of the old bridges which have served
so long — waking to destroy.

The now existing, now to be destroyed, Exe
Bridge was built from 1770 to 1778. It is a de¬
lightful example of the sensible-Classic mode of
building which ran through the two generations
following Wren. The curvature of the arches,
their gradation of size, the well-designed balus¬
trade, and the fine masonry, make it into a worthy
city monument ; and it is in sound condition.

It spans the river at the bottom of the steep
slope of High Street, and it is said to be incon¬
venient and of difficult gradient. Suggestions for
meeting these objections to the present bridge,
while retaining it in use, have been made, but
nothing, I believe, will content the authorities but
clearing away the “ old thing ” and clapping down
some steel girders.

The Fate of

The June number of the Burlington Maga¬
zine contains a vigorous appeal to the London
County Council to approach the present owner of
Clifford’s Inn with a view to purchasing the build¬
ings and preserving them for the public. This
appeal we desire to support most heartily. The
facts with regard to the recent sale of the Inn
will be in the memory of most people. Clifford’s
Inn had for many years ceased to perform the
functions for which it originally existed. It was
an “ Inn of Chancery,” and was intended to pro¬
vide preliminary education for law students before
they were called to the Bar and became members
of an “ Inn of Court.” It was governed by “ Mem¬
bers ” who co-opted each other, and roughly
speaking corresponded to the “ Benchers ” of the
Inns of Court. But this system of legal education
for barristers fell into disuse and Clifford's Inn
ceased to be an Inn of Chancery in anything but
name. No new “ Members” have been co-opted
since the year 18 77, and finally the few who sur¬
vived agreed to raise a friendly action in Chancery
with a view to obtaining a legal decision as to the
true status of the institution. It will be remem¬
bered that, in the somewhat similar case of Ser¬
jeant’s Inn, the Courts decided that the premises
were the private property/ of the members and

We give a view of this really noble piece of
architecture and readers of this note can judge for
themselves, by imaginary substitution, of the due
level of science or squalor whichever you like to
call it, which will assuredly result from the
destruction of this work of art. A stone bridge
has crossed the Exe at this point or near by for
about seven hundred years. The first was built
in 1231, just below at the expense of Walter
Gervase, Mayor. In its original position it did
not point directly to the foot of the High Street,
but towards a lane called, from its steepness,
Strip-Coat-Hill. Mr. Kerslake built on this the
theory that this lane, and not High Street, repre¬
sents the Roman High Street of the City. Free¬
man and later writers have concurred without
exception. Examination of the ground, however,
makes it clear that a bend at the bottom of High
Street was necessitated by the steepness of the
ground ; that the Roman approach to the town
never could have passed up the steps of Strip-
Coat-Hill, and therefore High Street is most
probably the Roman Road as was always thought
until this too ingenious theory was propounded.

W. R. Lethaby.

Clifford’s Inn.

allowed them to be sold, the proceeds being
divided among the surviving “ Sergeants.” But
in the case of Clifford's Inn the judge (Cozens-
Hardy) came to a different conclusion. He de¬
cided that there was a charitable trust upon the
funds of the institution, and that they could not
therefore be treated by the members as their pri¬
vate property. On this the surviving “ Members ”
went to the Attorney-General as head of the Bar,
and agreed upon a scheme by which the buildings
should be put up to auction and a portion of the
proceeds be handed over to him for purposes of
legal education, the remainder going to the “ Mem¬
bers.” Protests against this agreement were made
in the Press and elsewhere, and questions were
asked on the subject in Parliament, but the
“ Members” and the Attorney-General stood firm
and the Inn was sold by auction last month for
£100,000. But it appears that there is even yet
a chance that this interesting seventeenth century
group of buildings with its quiet garden in the
heart of London may be saved. For the editor
of the Burlington has reason to believe that the
purchaser at the recent auction would be willing
to part with his property at a price very little
above that which he gave for it if there should be
any movement to preserve the Inn for the public.

A rch it e ctur a l Rduca tion .

In England, unhappily, we have no Public De¬
partment charged with the preservation of ancient
buildings — a peculiarity which we share with
Russia alone of European nations. But the Lon¬
don County Council has recently formed a “ His¬
torical Records and Buildings Committee,” and
this Committee has already shown an intelligent
interest in the fate of Clifford’s Inn. It is much
to be hoped that the Council will have the courage

to find the necessary money for the purchase be¬
fore it is too late. The rents of the Chambers
would give a small but certain return on the
capital expended and the difference, if any, be¬
tween this sum and the three per cent, at which
the Council can borrow, would be well spent in
saving a picturesque corner of Old London from
destruction.

Architectural Education.

III. — Great Britain ( continiiecl\ .

THE ARCHITECTURAL SCHOOL OF
THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART.

By Beresford Pite.

The architectural syllabus is the first of the
four which comprise the course of instruction in
the Royal College of Art. It is primarily intended
to be the initial step in a scheme that views train¬
ing in art as a whole, design in the crafts,
modelling for sculpture and decorative painting
being the remaining stages of the course. The
secondary purpose of the Architectural School is
to provide a complete course for the study of
architecture as a practical building art for all
students who wish to specialise in architecture.

The study of architecture as the basis of all
other design is the object of the introductory
course which divides itself roughly into the study
by measurement and drawing of old work, and
the working out of simple subjects in design. The
historical development, workmanship, construc¬
tive purpose, and ornamental forms of subjects
selected for measurement, are demonstrated and
explained — such as the progressive development of
wooden framings, as seen in doors, screens, and
panellings from the thirteenth to the eighteenth
centuries, of which the Museum furnishes ex¬
amples. The differing points of view and origins
of idea in Mediaeval and Renaissance monuments,
and their expression in mouldings and sculptured
features are also demonstrated, and illustrated by
measured drawings to a large scale, made as with
the purpose of becoming practical working draw¬
ings for use by workmen.

The subjects in architectural design are set
upon simple and practical lines, and are based
upon demonstrations of the use of the materials
of walling which would be necessary for working
out the drawing of a cottage plan and the de¬
sign of its elevation in a practical manner, in brick
or stone, the material being preferably that of the

student’s home district. Technicalities of con¬
struction, which are not necessary to understand¬
ing the relationship of materials and of their
workmanship to design, are dispensed with in the
introductory course, but the designs produced all
have to represent a practicable building in the
material selected. Large scale details, and full-
size drawings are consequently prepared at very
early stages ; and in order to concentrate atten¬
tion on the constructive basis of architectural
form, all details have to be founded on or to be
direct adaptations from, some known example of
which a study note or sketch has been made. The
teacher has the great advantage, with elementary
students in an introductory course, of dealing
with open minds free from the prejudices as tO'
style that affect ordinary architectural schools, an
advantage which enables him to lay immediately
a foundation of the sound doctrine that satisfac¬
tory architecture can only proceed from good
construction. As a corollary to this beneficial
absence of preconceptions, it is necessary that the
student should not be left to pick up or to evolve
original ideas without definite guidance to accom¬
plished examples — these are supplied to him aS'
types, ranged within definite limits, as of Jacobean
and Georgian brickwork, by exhibitions, photo¬
graphs and measured drawings (Messrs. Belcher
and Macartney’s “Later Renaissance” being a
most useful example book), and by visits to build¬
ings. The liberty of the students in designing is-
strictly confined to their comprehension of the
items of constructed design which they have seen
and studied, imagination applying the material
thus acquired to the subject of design.

Masonry is dealt with on similar lines, the
system of wall construction that prevailed in
England from early times throughout the Middle
Ages supplying the constructional basis. Com¬
mencing with the rubble core, to which dressed
stone is added for angles and piers, arches

A rch itectura l Educa tion .

for windows and doors follow, the bonding in of
dressed stones, moulding, carving, and grouping
of shafts, are dealt with in lectures and demon¬
strations as steady developments in the civilisation
of building by the constructive art of Gothic
England. The vault is demonstrated similarly as
growing from a widened round arch of rubble,
intersected and strengthened by wrought stone
ribs rapidly developing into pointed arch groining
with its systematic addition of ribs, and growing
ingenuity until Tudor times.

Exercises are set in the working out of this
constructive system of design, as a village church
chancel, or part of a cloister, and visits to West¬
minster Abbey, Rochester, and St. Albans Cathe¬
drals fix the idea of the beauty achieved by this
building art on the students’ minds.

The Renaissance methods of the application
decoratively of the forms of the Greek and Roman
orders and their historical evolution are illus¬
trated. The monumental effects of repeated fac¬
tors are demonstrated, as in colonnades and in
large schemes of plan, with the symmetrical
grouping of masses, and visits are paid to Green¬
wich Hospital and Hampton Court Palace. The
introductory course in Architecture thus opens
some of the many avenues of study which spring
from and concentrate in Architectural art provid¬
ing a foundation and framework for practical
study in the other schools.

The students of the college may be divided
into two groups, training either for employ¬
ment as art teachers, or for the practical exer¬
cise of the Arts of Design, excluding the mere
amateur and dilettante artist. To either of
these groups the groundwork is necessary apart
from the special study of Architecture as an inde¬
pendent art. The course also provides the pre¬
liminary work for students who elect to specialise
in the Architectural School, and who are admitted
to the college for that purpose, and is thus avail¬
able for those who are about to take up Archi¬
tecture as a profession.

The complete Architectural course for the
training of specialised students aims at the study
of Architecture as a building art in detail, and
proceeds upon the basis and lines of study already
laid down. The subjects and limits of study are
enlarged, and more freedom in design becomes
possible. Problems of everyday planning and
constructive science are systematically and pro¬
gressively taken up, design proceeding upon con¬
struction. The measurement of some complete
buildings comes into the course of each year, and
combines historical fact with practical purpose.
Building construction is not studied apart from
the working out of a subject in design, but every
constructional problem of the subject is dealt

with, and takes its place as part of the design of
the whole.

Visits are made to modern buildings and to
works in progress for the study of practical work
in construction, and students, as they advance in
the course, are brought into contact with the
execution of Architectural works and with the
practical working out of designs. The preparation
of working details of flues, staircases, roofs, floors,
and other factors proceeds with their related de¬
tails of form, and the descriptions and specifica¬
tions of the materials to be employed with their
workmanship are combined. Thus Architectural
design is not treated as a subject apart from con¬
struction either in the old buildings studied or in
the working drawings of the students’ concep¬
tions.

Architectural study is combined with work in
the schools of the crafts of figure drawing and of
sculpture, unity of sympathy and of idea in all the
practical arts being an important element in the
scheme. Writing for inscriptions, wood carving,
plaster work, stained glass, and furniture are
branches of the school of design in Crafts which
are obviously cognate with Architectural work.

The foundation of a school of trained Architec¬
tural students upon a basis of systematic study
and practice in design is of importance to the
College scheme of unity in Art Training, for some
of its pupils will become teachers of Architecture,
and some will practice it or become executants in
the arts of building.

The influence that the advanced students can
by their work exercise upon those in the prelimi¬
nary course is of value, and juniors gain experi¬
ence by assisting advanced students in the prepa¬
ration of their sets of practical working drawings.

In this way also the specialised students in
Decorative painting and Sculpture combine with
Architectural students in designs of higher range,
and gain and give a practical experience of the
combination of artists in workmanship which it
is difficult to acquire later in life, and for which so
few facilities can at present be found.

It needs scarcely to be pointed out that a course
of training in Architecture treated as the basis of
practical art, and in conjunction with all the
other constructive arts begins from a different
basis, and has a larger end in view than those of
a crystallised syllabus of Architecture as a subject
for examinations. Much that is necessary and
ancillary to Architectural qualification and edu¬
cation by literary methods and practical work is
linked with and based upon the College syllabus,
the essential plan of which is a wide view of the
real unity of art in its varied expression in design,
of which the art of Architecture is at once the
simplest and most practical illustration.

Architecture at the

English polytheism — if the word may be
applied in a country where it is the rule for each
man to worship one god, but a different god from
his neighbour’s — polytheism of this kind might
have resulted, architectually, in some interesting
variety of type had the grounds of difference in
the worship been sufficiently great or remained
stable ; as it is, the numerous deities that command
the worship of an English town of a few thousand
inhabitants divide the energies of the temple-
builders without very clearly influencing their
imagination. The Quaker idea of a temple, to
take the most distinct, certainly differs from that
of a Catholic church : it is a meeting-house, a
waiting-room in which an incalculable spirit may
or may not descend on this or that worshipper,
and improvise a ritual by his lips. The bare pro¬
visional shell required for this visitation differed
by negation from the ritual church of the Mass, in
which the place and the moment of the Presence
were determined, and the person by whose act
it should be induced. But the meeting-house
idea that prevailed, with differences, among the
sects outside of the established church, has faded,
alongwith the sense of theological distinctions ; the
dissenters have been taking back all of the ritual
church, except what gave it a meaning. Hence
the many sects, whose separate existence depends
now on little more than a mild hereditary and social
vendetta, are responsible for adding to the number
of “Gothic” buildings, each with its trumpery
complement of spire, buttresses and aisles, that
pepper our unfortunate country.

But this feebly polytheistic tendency, nullified
by compromise and therefore deadly to the im¬
agination, is at work of course also in the estab¬
lished church. It is the character of established
institutions, in England, not to affirm one view,
but to include all forms of dissent in a semi-
sterilised condition. Who, for example, could
put a name to the imaginative view of the world
that the Royal Academy affirms ; yet it includes
samples of all views. So the Church of Eng¬
land aims at a comprehension of theological
opinions which, if they were in an active, eruptive
condition, must wreck the containing institution.
The equilibrium is just maintained among the
followers of low, high, broad, and other deities,
but this equilibrium, whatever may be its political
justification, is a very poor condition for art, which
requires a distinct imaginative lead.

The anomalies of the situation have been
brought out by the recent Liverpool Cathedral
competition. A city that is predominantly Low
Church wanted, practically, an immense meeting¬
house, a church subordinated to the requirements

Royal Academy-II.

of the pulpit. This was one of the conditions
laid down. But the spirit of compromise, which
is thought to have made us what we are as a
nation, required that the condition should be
qualified by a concession to the ritualistic tradition
of the church. It was therefore laid down that
the style was to be Gothic, by which we may
understand pointed arcades, i.e. the very worst
style possible for bringing an immense number of
people within sight and sound of a preacher.
Under these circumstances the assessors have
done their best, they have picked out a quite re¬
markable Gothic design. The committee on this
wished to draw back, either because the Gothic
design did not give the impossible in preaching
space, or, as it is suggested, for a reason whose
irony is even keener ; in the result the}’ have done
their best to neutralise their chosen designer’s
powers by making another architect responsible
for the final design.

I may seem to be digressing widely from the
subject of this paper, but I wish to indicate that,
behind the unsatisfactory state of our ecclesiastical
architecture lies a confused imagination. What
is wanted is neither clearly nor strongly wanted.
The Academy Exhibition shows us various relics
of the Liverpool Cathedral puzzle-competition.
They are baited a little fancifully for the committee-
mind, as by anglers who do not know what fly
that odd fish would rise to. Mr. Bodley is the
true refuge in such times of distress for the
committees. I look at the Clumber Church and
wonder what impulse can have carried such a
design into being, for the sense of missing the target
would be, to any mind I can fathom, cumula¬
tive, from the stepping of the buttresses to the
proportions between church and tower; yet I am
certain there is a quality in this design that should
carry the votes of a committee. So the design
for the tomb of Canon Carter runs counter to my
sense of design at every point ; in the scale of the
canopy, the misfit and quarrel of the frame and
the tomb, yet I am convinced that in the higher-
dimensioned space of the committee-mind these
perceptions are not valid, and that every¬
thing falls together in a beautifully adjusted har¬
mony.

Future times are not very likely to turn to
churches as our characteristic buildings : they
wdl be much more interested in our inventive
dealings with railway stations, embankments, and
bridges, and the series of exhibition buildings
that began with the Crystal Palace. And those
future times will be a good deal struck by the
divorce between what was called engineering in
our time and what was called architecture, and

Architecture at the Royal Academy.

by the timid dealings of “architects,” when they
got the chance, with those structures that were
our characteristic production. It may also be
observed that the ephemeral exhibition building
is often tackled with more courage and success
than the permanent, i.e., the museum. It is a
mistake to make a museum look like a temple or
any sort of building that has a special imagina¬
tive appeal ; for a museum is the reverse of all
that — it is a storehouse of competing imagina¬
tions. It is a mistake, moreover, in the case of
a museum of art, to put a great deal of imagery
on your building; for either the intense examples
of different times housed within will make a fool
of work less exquisite and intense on the build¬
ing ; or if conceivably your own imagery runs
up into a heaven that shames the relics of
others, then your museum is departing from its
proper attitude of hospitable impartiality. If a
museum could make itself so fine as that it would
not need to be a museum. I turn to Mr. Aston
Webb’s design for the new South Kensington
buildings, and I find there is provision for a vast
quantity of sculpture on the meagre spaces between
the windows. Of our two alternatives the first is
the more likely ; that the saints of art or whoever
are to figure on this eikonostasis will be put out
of countenance by the contents of the sculpture-
courts. I may seem to strike here on a detail, but
it is significant of the whole treatment. Like the
designer of the Houses of Parliament, Mr. Webb
has been at his wits’ end how to deal with the
formidable amount of window in a modern build¬
ing, and has fried to make it palatable by similar
devices. The ugly rounding of the top corners
of the windows and recessing of some of them
behind arches are other attempted palliations
of these endless rectangles of window. It seems
to me that nothing is gained by this teasing
and jealous action of the wall once it has been
beaten in the fight with windows, and that
a simple treatment, all frame and glass, like a
conservatory, is the line to take. Still less than
the details of the window surface do the larger
“features” of the facade help out or effectively
disguise the appearance of our storehouse. A
great central tower and minor domes and pin¬
nacles give the thing the look of a florid town-
hall. The central tower, whose only office, I
suppose, will be to throw a shade over the courts
behind, looks like the architecture of toy-boxes,
and it would be difficult to arrange anything less
happy than the domes with towers starting lop-
sidedly from their shoulder. In a word, like Mr.
Waterhouse on so many occasions, Mr. Webb
has here only added to that distressing family of
buildings, the poor relations of architecture.

Altogether, I find it difficult to discover in this

2 7

design the architect of the United Service Insti¬
tution in Whitehall, a building laudable on the
whole and with a carved frieze that is the best bit
of design of its kind in modern London. The
difficulty of the problem he had to solve here has
been too great for his courage, if not his capacity.
The difficulty was to provide a much greater
amount of gallery space than the site would fur¬
nish in top-lighted courts and to make a satisfac¬
tory architectural group of the whole. Mr. Webb’s
solution is ingenious in so far that he makes the
stages of his side-lighted galleries a continuous
screen on the street front to mask the top-lighted
courts, and that from the irregularity of the site
he gets fragments of space between the courts
and the screen for lighting from behind. But
this ingenuity has not resulted in an architectural
result worth having; the fronts are showy, but
not fit or impressive. And what this screen con¬
ceals is what might have given a bold architect his
chance. The plain walls of the courts, free from
space-devouring windows, would have been worth
showing and capable of broad treatment. But
how, it will be asked, would you provide the extra
gallery space when the ground level had been
covered ? I suggest, with all proper diffidence,
that here was an opportunity on a big open site
for the sky-scraper. Pile up those side-lighted
galleries at one spot, so as to reserve as much
top-lit space as possible (it is not exhausted in the
present plan), and you would have a “ feature,” a
tremendous tower that would have a reason for
existing.

I have left myself no space to deal in detail
with, commercial and domestic architecture, and
will only make two remarks. A chief crux of
commercial design at present seems to be the
determination of banks, insurance offices, and so
forth, to follow the lead of gin-palaces and show
their front at a corner. The bevelling of the
block that results has exercised the ingenuity of
our architects, but the solution is seldom satis¬
factory. The slicing away of the corner hurts the
natural fronts, and sets up ugly angles in the
frames of windows. The corner door is manage¬
able if the angle is restored above it, though even
then there is a weakening. With regard to domestic
design the best work shows a growing restraint
and sobriety. One can imagine the authors of the
revolution shivering now as they see what forces
they let loose when they played with “ quaintness.”
The little bit of play has become so solid and
weary a trade of coquettishness. The fibre of
Englishmen must have oddly changed if they do
not resent living in the art-nookeries and sleeping
among the “fitments” that the taste of uphol¬
sterers and shopping women has brought upon
them. D. S. MacColl.

Current A rchitecture.

NEW LODGES AND ENTRANCE GATE, TODDINGTON, GLOS.
E. J. MAY, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture.

GLEVaHOW TOWARDS DlSIVE

NEW LODGES AND ENTRANCE GATE, “ TODDINGTON,” GLOS. E. J. MAY, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture.

Toddington Entrance Lodges. — These are
designed for the main entrance and are to be built
in local stone and covered with stone tiles. Mr.
E. J. May is the architect.

The Williamsburgh (New East River)
Bridge, New York City.- — It was supposed that
this bridge could not have a channel span of much
less than 1,610 feet, but the Harbour-line Board
consented that the piers might project outside the
pier-head lines below a plane 32 feet below low
water; this permitted a reduction of the span to
1,600 feet from centre to centre of towers at which
it was fixed. The clear water way at the old
bridge is about 1,400 feet between pier-head lines
and at the new bridge 1,550 feet.

The type of the New Suspension Bridge is that
in which the main span only is suspended from the
cables, the cables from the towers to the anchor¬
ages carrying no portion of the load of the bridge,
but acting simply as back-stays. This plan
shortens the length of the cables and reduces the
cost of one of the most expensive features of a
suspension bridge.

The New Bridge provides space for two separate
and independent railroad tracks for the use of
elevated railroads, four additional tracks for the
use of surface railways with two roadways, each
20 feet wide, and two foot-walks and two bicycle-
paths, placed directly over the surface-railway
tracks. Thegrade of the elevated railway trackswas
fixed not to exceed 2y per cent., and all the rail¬
way tracks and the carriage ways are brought
together on the same level at the middle of the
main span, the entire width of the bridge being
1 18 feet over all.

The outer cables are spaced 120 feet apart at
their foot-hold in the bottom of the anchorages,
and extend over the towers in nearly vertical
planes to the middle of the river span, where each

pair of cables is brought close to the correspond¬
ing truss. Each of the eight columns of each
tower is 4 feet square and composed of plates
aggregating about if inches in thickness.

The cables are composed of 7,696 wires of
No. 6 gauge, of about yg inches in diameter. The
wires will be grouped, in cable making, into
37 strands of 208 wires each ; the wires are per¬
fectly straight and laid parallel to each other,
and are wrapped, first into separate strands, and
finally, into one solid circular mass about 18 inches
in diameter. Each wire is about 3,000 feet long,

THE WILLIAMSBURGH (NEW EAST RIVER) BRIDGE,

NEW YORK. PLAN SHOWING POSITION OF NEW BRIDGE.

Current Architecture,

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Photo : Hall.

THE WILLIAM SBURGH (NEW EAST RIVER) BRIDGE, NEW YORK CITY.

VIEW OF BROOKLYN FROM THE TOP OF ONE OF THE TOWERS. L. L. BUCK, CHIEF ENGINEER.

and the several lengths are spliced together at the
ends with a small sleeve-nut splice.

The approaches are simply steel viaducts,
1,280 feet long in Brooklyn and 2,070 feet long in
Manhattan, terminating in masonry structures

where the grade comes near the ground, at Bed¬
ford Avenue in Brooklyn and Ridge Street in
Manhattan, Six thousand tons of steel are re¬
quired for the Brooklyn viaduct and 12,000 tons
for that in Manhattan. The railway tracks will

Current A rchitecture.

Photo : Hall. 2

THE WILLI AMSBURGH (NEW EAST RIVER) BRIDGE, NEW YORK CITY.

DETAILS OF CENTRE CABLES ANCHORAGE. L. L. BUCK, CHIEF ENGINEER.

be laid on ties, and the roadways will be paved,
probably with asphalt. The foot-walks and the
cycle-paths come together under the elevated
railway tracks on the approaches, the cycle-paths
above the foot-walks. The cycle-paths run out

on to the grade of the plazas, between the trolley-
tracks at the terminals, while the foot-paths ter¬
minate at the cross streets next to the terminals,
and pedestrians will thus be kept out of the way
of vehicular travel.

Current A rchitecture.

THE WILLIAMSBURGH (NEW EAST RIVER) BRIDGE.
L. L. BUCK, CHIEF ENGINEER.

Current A rchitecture ,

VO I..

XIV. — c

THE WILLIAMSBURGH (NEW EAST RIVER) BRIDGE, NEW YORK CITY.

VIEW FROM BROOKLYN DURING CONSTRUCTION. L. L. BUCK, CHIEF ENGINEER.

Current Architecture

Photo : Hall.

THE WILLI AMS BURGH (NEW EAST RIVER) BRIDGF, NEW YORK CITY.
DETAIL SHOWING CABLE WORK. L. L. BUCK, CHIEF ENGINEER.

Mr. L. L. Buck, M.Am.Soc.C.E., M.I.C.E.,
is the Chief Engineer, and Mr. O. F. Nichols,
M.Am.Soc.C.E., M.I.C.E., the Engineer in charge;
Messrs. K. L. Martin, Asso. M.Am.Soc.C.E. ; H.
D. Robinson, Asso. M.Am.Soc.C.E. ; Alexander

Johnson, Asso. M.Am.Soc.C.E. ; O. M. Kelly,
Jun.Am.Soc.C.E. ; J. D. Wilkens; Robert Haw¬
ley; W. R. Bascome ; George Lewis; E. D.
Knap, and John Tilly, are Assistant Engineers
in charge of various parts of the work.

Current A rchitecture

Photo : E. Dockree.

ADDITION TO THE SCANDINAVIAN SAILORS’ HOME, WEST INDIA DOCKS.
NIVEN AND WIGGLESWORTH, ARCHITECTS.

The new building contains twenty-one bed¬
rooms, a commodious hall, sitting and writin
room for officers, and a large cafe. The build in
is faced with yellow stocks and red brick. The
roof is covered with Tilberthwaite green slates.
The structure was erected on concrete piers reach¬
ing from the gravel bottom through a stratum of
waterlogged dock mud about 12 feet deep. The
builders were Messrs. Harris and Wordrof, of
Limehouse, and Mr. W. Heathcoat was Clerk of
Works. Messrs. Niven and Wigglesworth are the
architects.

riRJIT FLGDR. FLAN

ATTIC TC3DR PLAN

to bo

C u rren t A rch i tectu re.

WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL. THE SUMMIT OF THE
CAMPANILE. THE LATE J. F. BENTLEY, ARCHITECT

Photo : Henry Irving.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVIEW, AUGUST,
I903, VOLUME XIV.
NO. 8l.

Photo : E. Dockrce.

THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL’S, WITH STEVENS’S
MODEL IN POSITION. VIEW FROM THE SOUTH.

(see note, page 62).

Photo : E. Dockree.

THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL’S, WITH STEVENS’S
MODEL IN POSITION. VIEW FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.

VOL. XIV.— D 2

Photo : E. Dockree.

THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL’S, WITH STEVENS’S
MODEL IN POSITION. VIEW FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

Photo : E. Dochree.

THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL’S, WITH STEVENS’S
MODEL IN POSITION. VIEW FROM THE NORTH-EAST.

Philae.

The destruction of Philae is to Egypt
what the fall of the Campanile was to Venice, and
the two architectural losses of 1902 have many
points in common. The words “destruction ” and
“ loss ” may seem inappropriate in the case of the
island, where the temples still stand, and their
disintegration, if it comes at all, may be long
delayed ; but in its altered surroundings Philae
will no more be the Philae of old, the gem of
Egypt, the inspiration of the artist, and the despair
of the word-printer, just as the restored Campa¬
nile will never possess the character which history
and sentiment gave to its predecessor.

On the other hand, while the tower struck the
ncte of severity necessary as a contrast to the
exuberant richness of the central group of Venetian
buildings, the island served exactly the opposite
purpose among the monuments of the Nile. It
was a unique example of Egyptian architecture
in a cheerful, graceful, and almost playful mood,
and gained added effect from standing half-way
between the colossal solemnity of Thebes and the
supernatural majesty of Abu-Simbel.

The fact that the existing buildings date from
Ptolemaic and Roman times does not entirely
account for their character, since many of the
late temples were designed on the scale of the
Pharaonic work, and before the discovery of the
key to the hieroglyphics, the temple at Dendera
was actually attributed to the earlier period by
the Egyptologists.

Hardly anything is known of the early history
of the island. The name is the Greek and
Roman version of the word Paaleq — a “ frontier,”
and it was always regarded as the Southern
boundary of Upper Egypt, though properly
belonging to Nubia, since it lies above the first
cataract.

An inscription on a rock off the north end of
the island records an expedition into Nubia made
by Thothmes IX. about B.c. 1466, and this is the
only trace still remaining of the entire series of
Dynasties up to the Persian conquest.

As a seat of the worship of Isis it was held
sacred both by the Egyptians and the Nubians,
and the cause of its later importance may be
found in the increased popularity of that cult
under the Ptolemies. The triad of Isis, Osiris,
and Horns, though recognised from the earliest
times, was partly eclipsed under the New Empire
by the triad of Thebes, headed by Amen Ra, who
became the national god of the whole country.
With the fall of the Theban empire, however, Isis
again came to the front ; she obtained a position
among the Greeks after Egypt became accessible

to foreigners, and finally advanced to Rome,
where her cult spread so rapidly among the lower
classes that as early as B.c. 58 her threatened
invasion of the Capitol itself had to be prevented
by a special law.

The result was that Philae became the goal of
visitors, not only from Nubia and lower Egypt,
but from distant parts of the Mediterranean,
whether as pilgrims or simply as travellers, since
the interest of a tour in Egypt “to inspect the
monuments of antiquity” was recognised as soon
as it was made possible. Herodotus, who went
to Egypt during the Persian occupation in the
fifth century, B.c., says nothing of the island, and
probably never saw it, since his description of the
Nile is given, as he remarks, “on my own obser¬
vations, as far as Elephantine (Assuan), but after
that from hearsay only,” as is evident from the
length of time he allots to the passage of the first
cataract. In any case none of the buildings now
standing existed in his time, and only one of them
dates from before the Ptolemies, under whom
most of the larger temples were begun. During
the Roman occupation various works were carried
out up to the time of Hadrian, after which the
Egyptian tradition was broken, and Diocletian,
who visited the island himself, put up a gateway
which is frankly Roman in character.

Egypt was formally Christianised in a.d. 379,
but Isis worship continued on Philae till the reign
of Justinian, and only ceased about a century
before the Mohammedan conquest in a.d. 638 ;
in the interval Coptic Christians settled on the
island and built several churches.

The most striking point about the temples as a
whole is the absence of any trace of Greek feeling
in actual form. Whatever may have been the
influence of Greek architecture among the Hellenic
cities of the Delta, the old traditions were too strong
for it in Upper Egypt; at Dendera and Edfu even
more than here there is hardly a feature to dis¬
tinguish the work from that of the Theban em¬
pire ; even the one and only cornice moulding is
still ubiquitous, and such new developments as do
exist might logically have been evolved from the
earlier style without the interference of any foreign
element. But there is, it must be admitted, a feeling
of grace and delicacy about Philae, due partly to
the smallness of scale which the limited size of the
island seemed to demand, but partly, it may be,
to an appreciation of the spirit, without any desire
to copy the forms of contemporary Greek work.

The usual route from Assuan through the desert
passes the famous granite quarries of Syene, with
their unfinished obelisk half embedded in the rock.

P hi la e

PHILAE FROM THE MAINLAND, LOOKING WEST.

Philae

PHILAE FROM ONE OF THE ISLANDS, LOOKING EAST.

P hi l ae.

and it was the existence of this band of granite,
interrupting the sandstone formation of the Nile
valley, and forming the natural boundary between
Egvpt and N ubia, which decided the engineers in
their choice of the site for the great dam. We
reach the river at the village of Shellal, connected
with Assuan by a short military railway, and the
terminus at present of the direct line from Cairo,
which is taken up again at Wadi Haifa about two
hundred miles further south.

Philae lies near the east bank of the Nile, which
is here divided by numerous islands and widens
considerably, narrowing again half a mile lower
down at the head of the cataract. The island
itself is a granite rock, in plan and dimensions not
unlike the Acropolis at Athens, less than a quarter
of a mile in length by about 130 yards across at
the widest point, and during low Nile it used to
stand up well from the water level.

The beauty of the temples, in their setting of
palms and mimosa bushes, was increased bv con¬
trast with the wildness of the surrounding islands,
where the red and purple heaps of boulders have
been polished like glass by the flooded river, while
southwards the Nile disappears round a bend, and
the background of the picture is formed by granite
cliffs, over which cataracts of golden sand pour
down like vast cones of glistening corn — true
desert sand, the very existence of which the
powdered brown mud of lower Egypt has so far
led us to question.

At the south end of the island the earliest
existing building marks the landing-place of
pilgrims from Nubia.

This is the vestibule of Nectanebus II. (b.c.
358), an oblong building in which the roof
was carried by fourteen columns with screen walls
between them ; only six columns are now stand¬
ing, and the capitals, which are of the concave
bell-shaped type always used here, have heads of
the Goddess Hathor carved on the sides of the
abacus. These Hathor capitals, found on an
immense scale at Dendera, show the tendency of
the Egyptians to increase the height of the
abacus ; this feature was necessary in the case of
the so-called lotus-bud capitals which tapered
upwards, but over the projecting concave type it
only served to relieve the delicate outward curve
from the weight of the architrave, which in many
examples still appeared from below to rest
directly on the capital. Here the abacus is con¬
siderably higher than its width and forms a second
capital, in which the head carved on each side is
surmounted by a kind of miniature temple faqade.

The temple to which this building served as a
vestibule was destroyed soon after its completion
by a high Nile, but the water stairs, by which
pilgrims from the south ascended, are still in situ.

From the vestibule we enter the outer court of
the Temple of Isis — an enclosure measuring about
300 ft. by 120 ft. and very irregular in plan; in¬
deed, the whole group belonging to the great
temple is arranged without the least regard for
symmetry, and simply follows the natural shape of
this side of the island. The temple itself is regular
in plan, but it is set at an angle to the forecourt,
which again is entered from one corner of the outer
court. As far as can be seen, there was nothing to
prevent the planning of these buildings on a centre
line, and it is evident that the Egyptian archi¬
tects were quite ready to throw over symmetry in
a case where a limited scale lent itself to pictu¬
resqueness. The western boundary of the court
is formed by a retaining wall carried up from the
water level and pierced with square window
openings ; reliefs, in some cases coloured, show
Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero, in the same dress
and attitude as the Pharaohs of centuries before,
making offerings to the local deities.

In front of the wall runs a colonnade of 31
columns on very clumsy bases, restored in 1896
according to the original design. The Egyptians
never succeeded in producing even a tolerable
base, and hardly made any advance upon the
original wide circular platform on which stand
the mis-named “ Protodoric ” columns of Beni-
Hasan — a curious contrast to the elaborate
richness of the base in Assyrian and Persian
work.

The shaft, however, has now got rid of the
ugly, bulbous form we have met with at Thebes
(where the column looks weakest at the very
point where strength should be suggested). It
tapers slightly, but has no entasis, and below the
capital it nearly always takes the form of a bundle
of stalks confined by a band wound several times
round the shaft. The capitals themselves are all
different, and form a series as varied as those of
the Doge’s Palace, while the abacus is kept
reasonably low. A good deal of colour still
remains intact, and the design is altogether one
of the lightest and most attractive in the island.

The corresponding colonnade on the east side
has only 16 columns, and is stopped at the south
end by the ruins of a small temple to the Nubian
god Ahresnefer, built by Ptolemy Philopator about
B.c. 220, and repaired by other kings, including
Ergamenes of Nubia, who appears to have as¬
sumed the titles of the ancient Pharaohs, and
was treated as an equal by the reigning Ptolemy.

The ten columns nearest to this temple are still
unfinished, and the capitals were roughly blocked
out before being placed in position. This habit of
building in all masonry in the rough and finishing
it on the spot, often led to temples remaining in¬
complete for centuries, or even, it seems, for

P hi l ae

PHILAE. THE OUTER COURT OF THE TEMPLE OF ISIS, LOOKING NORTH.

4§

Philae

PHILAE. WEST COLONNADE OF THE OUTER COURT TO THE TEMPLE OF ISIS.

Philae

PHILAE. EAST COLONNADE OF THE OUTER COURT:

TEMPLE OF ISIS

Philae

PHILAE. WEST COLONNADE OF THE FORECOURT, TEMPLE OF ISIS.

P hi lae.

FHILAE. CAPITALS IN THE HYPOSTYLE HALL. TEMPLE OF ISIS.

eternity, but work did not usually cease at such an
early stage of progress as this. The first pylon,
begun about B.c. 370, and measuring 150 ft. by 25 ft.,
with a height of 60 ft., occupies most of the north
end of the forecourt ; the reliefs on its outer face
date from the time of Ptolemy Auletes (b.c. 80),
and consist of the usual figures, but none of the
accessories have been put in. On each side of
the central doorway, another work of N cetane -
bus II., the pylon is grooved to receive a flagstaff,
and the west tower contains a smaller doorway
leading direct to the “ Birth-house ” in the fore¬
court.

Facing the east tower, and separated from it
by an entrance gateway of Ptolemy II., is a very
small temple of lemhotep, an Egyptian god, iden¬
tified by the Greeks with dEsculapius. It was
completed by Ptolemy X., about B.c. 200, and he
appears over the doorway in conventional form,
making offerings to the gods. But the inscription
stating the dedication of the temple by himself
and his queen Cleopatra is, in defiance of tradi¬
tion, carved on the top member of the cornice in
Greek characters, an innovation hardly ever met
with, even under the Roman occupation.

Entering the forecourt, which measures about
100 ft. by 80 ft., we see on the left the “ Birth-
house ” already mentioned, commemorating the
birth of Horus, son of Isis, and consisting of a

vestibule leading to three small chambers. It is
a complete detached temple in itself, and on three
sides is surrounded by an external colonnade, a
remarkable feature which was never introduced
in the work of any earlier period. Regarding the
temple merely as the western boundary of the
forecourt, it would of course be natural to the
Egyptiins to build a colonnade on the inner side
of it ; but those on the north and west sides have
no such raison d'etre, and seem to suggest that here,
if anywhere, some direct Greek influence may be
traced. The whole plan, indeed, is abnormal, for
not only is it a piece of external architecture,
while the Egyptian temples aimed solely at
internal effect, but the mere fact of the third hall
of the interior being the largest contradicts the
Egyptian principle of diminishing the scale from
the entrance onwards.

Many of the Hathor capitals in the order are
well preserved, and there is a barbaric richness
about the whole design when compared with that
of the outer court. The corresponding building
on the east side consists of some small rooms
opening out of a colonnade and containing reliefs
of the time of Tiberius ; in one of the rooms a
staircase leads to an upper story of considerable
size.

The second pylon, on the north side, is set at
an angle to the forecourt, and is only about 100 ft.

P hi l ae.

in length ; at the base of the east tower an in¬
scribed stele was formed on the face of the granite
rock which here crops out, and a small shrine,
now very dilapidated, was put up to shelter it from
the weather.

A flight of steps leads up to the entrance of the
temple proper, which in plan is a compressed
edition, so to speak, of the smaller Theban type
represented by that of Khons at Karnak, which,
however, is rather longer. The open vestibule is
very short, and only has one column on each side,
but as it was divided from the Hypostyle hall
merely by low screen walls (now destroyed) the
two together practically form one large hall con¬
taining ten columns and partly open to the sky.
The capitals here are the finest examples remain¬
ing of the colour system of this period, and, thanks
to the sheltered position, their preservation is
almost perfect. A light bluish -green, a dull
brick red, and a blue of medium tone are the
colours mainly used, while we miss the combina¬
tion of turquoise and dark blue which is so charac¬
teristic of earlier decoration in Egypt. The
colours are arranged without any attempt to
imitate realistically the foliage represented on the
capital, and it will be noticed that in the outer
range of columns the design is carved in bold
relief as well as painted, but at the back of the hall
the relief is very slight. No doubt it was felt that
in the latter position the colouring was effective
enough, but that it needed the emphasis of high
relief under the strong light from the opening in
the vestibule roof.

The reflection thrown up by the sunlit floor,
now covered with sand, adds a kind of theatrical
brilliance to the colours, and the whole picture
is one of the most cheerful and fascinating to be
met with in the entire series of ancient temples.

When Isis worship was finally put down, Coptic
services were held in the Hypostyle hall, and
traces of these may still be seen in the crosses
carved on the walls; there is also a Latin in¬
scription upon the restored shaft of one of the
columns. Beyond the hall lie the sanctuary and
other small dark rooms surrounding it ; they con¬
tain the usual reliefs of the time of Ptolemy II.,
who founded the temple about B.c. 270, and in
his reign and that of his son most of the work
was carried out.

Passing between the second pylon and the
Birth-house, where the columns on the north and
east sides are still unfinished, we reach the
Nilometer — a flight of steps leading down to the
river and enclosed by walls, on which the levels
are marked in palms and cubits. The cubit is
about 20 inches, and the measurement lines ex¬
tend up to the seventeenth, presumably just above
the highest flood level of the period. This cor¬

responds fairly closely with the average rise at the
present day, and shows that whatever changes
may have taken place in the lower Nile valley, the
granite bed of the river at this point has hardly
been worn down at all in the last twenty cen¬
turies.

Close to the Nilometer stands Hadrian’s gate¬
way, modelled on that of Nectanebus in the first
pylon, and decorated by Marcus Aurelius (one of
the reliefs represents the source of the Nile as a
river god at the foot of a mountain, pouring water
from two vases), and the square temple of Harne-
diotef or Horus, built under Claudius, but now
entirely destroyed down to the pavement level
owing to the removal of the stones for use in
Coptic churches.

At the northern end of the island the temple of
Augustus, erected in b.c. 12 by the Nubians of the
district, is interesting as a piece of Roman work
in character as well as date, and it is curious that
at the same time building operations in connection
with the temple of Isis were being carried out
in the traditional and vernacular style, which
held its own as late as the reign of Hadrian.
Even in details of construction a difference may
be seen, for the blocks of stone in the temple of
Augustus are numbered or lettered in Greek char¬
acters, while in vernacular work the place of each
stone was indicated on it by incised lines showing
the position of the joints in the surrounding
blocks.

In front of the temple, but not quite central
with it, Diocletian erected a gateway which
formed in its time the entrance to the island from
the north. It consists of a large central and two
smaller side arches, and over one of the latter
there still remains about half of a dome on pen-
dentives — a true masonry dome with radiating
voussoirs. If the building really dates from about
a.d. 300, the authority for which was found in the
name of Diocletian inscribed on one of the stones
which is now lost, this must be by far the earliest
known example of a dome on pendentives covering
an opening square in plan.

Turning southwards again we pass the ruins of
a Coptic church, for which materials were taken
from the temple of Harnediotef, and reach the
Temple of Hathor; this was founded by Ptolemy
Philometor (b.c. 182-146), but the forecourt with
columns between screen walls, now mostly de¬
stroyed, dates from Roman times. The facade of
the temple itself contains two columns with very
beautiful capitals, on which a good deal of colour
has survived, and the whole design, owing to its
extremely small scale, looks like a miniature model
for a larger temple.

Near the corner of the first pylon we notice an
unfinished and ruinous chapel built to shelter a

Philae

VOL. XIV. — V.

PHILAE. THE KIOSQUE.

Philae .

PHILAE. OUTER COURT OF THE TEMPLE OF ISIS, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1902.

large altar, and finally turn to the celebrated
building known as the Kiosque, or “ Pharaoh’s
bed,” which is conspicuous in every view of
Philae, and is probably the last building of any
size erected in the traditional style of Egypt,
since it is attributed to Trajan, and may have
been founded well on in the second century a.d.
Obviously it is not a temple ; apart from the
doorway at each end, such a building, open on all
sides except for screen walls of no great height,
would have been quite unsuited to the Egyptian
ritual with its dark and mysterious surroundings.
It is more likely to have been used as a hall for
the marshalling of religious processions, which
had crossed over from the mainland. The design
was modelled, M. Perrot suggests, on that of the
Vestibule of Nectanebus, the Hathor capitals of
which are here copied on a larger scale. Only
the lower capitals, however, were executed, and
the abacus blocks are still unfinished and project
slightly beyond the architrave ; in fact, most of
the masonry throughout has been left in the
rough as it was originally built, except for one
panel on the interior face of the screen walls.

The Kiosque can never have been roofed in the
ordinary way with single slabs of stone, as there
are no internal supports, and the existence of
hollows cut on the inner side of the cornice blocks

points to the use of wooden beams. The curious
form of doorway with a broken lintel, so often met
with in work of the Roman period, is said to have
been adopted because the long poles which carried
standards and other religious emblems could not
pass under an ordinary lintel unless the door was
of considerable height ; but the innovation came
too late in the history of the style to allow of the
jamb and its fragment of lintel receiving a more
appropriate treatment. Another alteration in
detail was involved in this change ; that splen¬
didly decorative symbol, the winged globe, which
from very early times was carved over every
Egyptian doorway without exception, has now to
be placed in the centre of the main cornice, where
we find it here and in the Temple of Hathor.

Such was Philae in the past. As to the future,
it may be recalled that the first scheme for the
great dam, put forward in 1893, provided for a
head of water which would have entirely covered
the temples for several months in the year. In
consequence of the indignation aroused in all
parts of the world by this prospect, the engineers
were obliged to reduce the height of the dam by
27 ft., though this maximum is still far from
satisfactory to Philae. The result is, that from
December to April the water level of the new lake
will reach rather more than half way up the

Philae.

PHILAE. THE TEMPLE OF ISIS IN THE AUTUMN OF I902.

columns in the outer court, and slightly less in
the Temple of Isis and the Kiosque, which stand
a few feet higher.

The stability of the buildings has been as far as
possible assured. Major Lyons’ investigations in
1896 showed that, contrary to the usual custom
in ancient Egypt, the foundations are of consider¬
able depth, and in most cases reach the solid
rock; they were further repaired and strengthened
during the last year, but still it is impossible to
think that the sandstone blocks, some of them
very poor in quality, can permanently resist the
action of the water, and in any case deposits of
river mud will disfigure their surface.

The engineers are cheerfully optimistic ; they
point out that the high level water of the dam
will contain hardly any of the Nile mud, which is
only brought down at a certain time of year ;
and they even go so far as to assert that Philae
“will rise refreshed every year like Aphrodite
from the sea,” apparently regarding the five
months’ submersion as a kind of gigantic spring-
cleaning. Refreshed or not, however, there will
be no one to see it rise, since it is precisely from
December to April that Assouan is visited by
Europeans, and in the height of the summer when
the island will partly emerge, the climate puts any
such intention out of the question.
e 2

The necessity for the Assouan dam must be fully
admitted. No country can be called upon to
forego progress, and turn itself into a museum of
antiquities, for the benefit of the travelling world.
But at the same time, Philae has not been “pre¬
served ; ” it has been destroyed in all but the
actual dismemberment of the buildings — an in¬
evitable sacrifice, in spite of the fact that the
temples may still stand for centuries, and succes¬
sive generations may still come to gaze on the.
ghost of the most beautiful scene in Egypt.

Ronald P. Jones.

Note. — The best authority on Philae is the
“ Report on the Island and Temples of Philae,” by
Major Lyons (oblong quarto, Cairo, 1896), which
gives plans and particulars of all the buildings-
investigated at that time, and a beautiful series of
photographs. Unfortunately the temple of Isis-
itself is omitted altogether, since it was not found
necessary to do any repairs or excavations there
so that in this important respect the book is in¬
complete. I cannot find that anything has been
published on a large scale with measured draw¬
ings or facsimiles of the colour decoration, except
that a few of the Hypostyle capitals are given in
Prisse d’Avenne’s “ Histoire de l’Art Egyptien.”'

English Mediceval Figure-Sculplure

English Mediaeval Figure -Sculpture.

CHAPTER VL— FIRST GOTHIC FIGURE-
SCULPTURE (1175-1280).
CARVING IN RELIEF.

By Edward S. Prior and Arthur Gardner.

As already said, the reliefs at Westminster
must have been earlier than the great angels of Lin¬
coln. They are placed at the ends of the transepts
in the spandrels of the window-arches, which range
with the triforium. The date of their carving was
therefore from 1250-1260 — those at the north end
being probably the first worked. Since there are
three arches in the transept end, there are- -to use
the description adopted for the Lincoln work — two
central figures and two flanking in each composition.

At the north end the central figures are gone,
but we give (Fig. 100 b) a photograph of the cast
made from one of the flanking angels, and
Fig. 100 A gives the other angel in the north tran¬
sept, taken from the work itself. Contemporary
with the first angels at Lincoln, they can be seen
to have the same draperies and filleted head-dress,
but the sentiment and quality of the work are
vastly superior. There is in pose and expression
that indefinable suggestion which appears so curi¬
ously in thirteenth-century sculpture — the re¬
assertion of the noble type, as opposed to the
merely pretty one, which, for want of a better
word, we are compelled to call the “ sculptur¬
esque ideal,” and which is so striking a charac¬
teristic in the Greek art of the filth century B.c.
No early Athenian relief could be calmer or nobler
in design, and curiously, too, the details of tech¬
nique in hair and draperies have been paralleled.
Turning, however, to the central figures (which in
the south transept remain) we note a disregard of
anatomy— such as no Greek work shows, and
which we shall remark often when thirteenth-
century sculptors deal with movement. This is
very visible in the contorted attitudes adopted as
the energetic expression of mediaeval earnestness.
In this one matter the Lincoln angel-sculptors
show a superior training, and a capacity to emerge,
which might have led to still greater achievements,
if the course of architecture had permitted it.

But Gothic architecture was not to be regulated
so as to create a style in frieze-sculpture. The
method of large figure-reliefs carved on the sur¬
face of the wall, and dependent for effect on
the broad surface of the architectural ground,
appears essentially as a thirteenth-century prac¬
tice. In the fourteenth century the scope of
figure-relief was restricted to the smaller fields of
screen-work and tomb canopies, and, even in the
decoration of such furniture, had to yield largely
to the competition of the constructional ornaments

A.G.

FIG. IOI.— PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT.

of architectural use. In the big spaces of the
building scheme, tracery and panel ousted the
figure from its earlier position as spandrel decora¬
tion, or admitted it only as the detached figure, for
which an architectural niche had been prepared.

But at first, these trefoils and quatrefoils, which
grew into tracery and foreshadowed the doom of
figure-relief, were designedly, themselves, the seats
of figure-work. Thus, in the Winchester Chapels
of c. 1204 — one of the earliest of our full Gothic
works — the quatrefoils of the wall arcades can be
seen to have had affixed to their Purbeck filling
figures either of wood or metal. At Boxgrove,
near Chichester, the main arcade of the Quire,
c. 1220, has in its spandrels deep-cut quatrefoils,
in each of which has been a figure, an idea which
clearly follows the shallow-set reliefs carved in
the triforium of the Chichester Quire, the work of
c. 1190. 61

Heads set in foiled panels still remain in
the west front of Peterborough (Fig. 101), and
there are half-length figures of apostles on the
parapet of the apse of the same cathedral, which
were added about the same date, 1225 (Fig. 102).

So, too, in the west front of Wells, there are
at different heights three ranges of geometrical
recesses, each exhibiting a series of connected
figure-subjects, which, as being probably executed

61 The figures here are now plasterwork, which was modelled
on the remains of the old about the year 1815. In the draperies
some of the original is le't

A.G.

FIG. 102. — PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. PARAPET
OF APSE.

5 8 English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

with the arcades of the west front, inay be
accepted as some of the earliest work in this
our great English show of early sculpture. Their
■date would thus be about 1220 to 1230. They
are practically detached sculpture leading up to
the art of the statues, of which some may be con¬
temporary, but most would be later in date. The
first tier is one of thirty-two quatrefoils, not a few
of which still contain figures, half-length, as at
Peterborough, with an execution that is completely
in the round (Fig. 103). The face treatment is
that of the corbel heads in the west bays of the
interior (see Fig. 66b, Chap. IV7.), with short
hair and round full features, while the drapery-
starts the peculiar style which appears through¬
out the Wells statues, that of finely divided,
rippled folds, a skilful refinement of what in the
Malmesbury (Fig. 51, Chap. III.) and Wenlock
reliefs (Fig. 52, Chap. III.) was rudimentary and
inexpressive. We regard this drapery as a local
English evolution, whose steps can be traced up¬
wards from its sources. It can be clearly^ distin¬
guished from the broader, flat, angular cutting of
drapery which, begun in the reliefs of the Lincoln
West Front (see Figs. 43 and 44, Chap. III.),
reached its finest technique in the great works we
have shown from Westminster and Lincoln.

just above at Wells, another somewhat larger
range of fifty quatrefoils, instead of single
figures, has subjects in full relief, many of which
are in good preservation. Those to the south of
the central doorway are from scenes of the Old
Testament, those to the north from the New.
We show from the latter, “ Christ among the
Doctors” (Fig. 104): the “Transfiguration” and
“Last Supper” are equally striking as com¬
positions. On the north, the reliefs showing the

FIG. 103. WELLS. WEST FRONT.

“ Creation ” and “ Fall of Man ” are specially
dramatic, the figure of the Almighty being power¬
fully rendered. The figures in these sculptures
are about two feet in height, and their dignity and
their solemn action distinguish them as some
of the most serious of our thirteenth-century
sculptures; it is a pity that decay and distance
from the ground make them little observed, for
their quality shows English art at a high level
by the side of the contemporary French, and still
more when compared with the first works of the
Italian Renaissance.

The sculptures of the two quatrefoils immediately
on either side of the central doorway do not be¬
long to this series, but must have been carved in
connection with the “Coronation of the Virgin,”
which with its arcaded niche was plainly an insertion
into the scheme of the lower stage
of the front. The actions here are
seen to be a little freer, and the
draperies less minutely folded, a
progress in technique which we
shall note also in the detached
statues as they begin to advance
into the later manner. The figure
of St. John the Evangelist (Fig. 105)
is essentially dramatic, and the
“ Coronation of the Virgin ”
(Fig. 106), though dignified, has a
plastic emphasis of action which is
wanting in the earlier reliefs. Such
a work we can put in close connec¬
tion with the contemporary ivories.

The third tier of figure reliefs at
Wells acts as a cornice to the great
range of statues. At some hundred
feet from the ground is the Resur¬
rection (Fig. 107), the naked dead

FIG. I04. — WELLS. WEST FRONT OF CATHEDRAL.

“CHRIST AMONG THE DOCTORS.”

(From a photograph taken by Mr. T. W. Phillips, of Wells, during the Restoration.)

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture.

A.G.

FIG. 105. — WELLS. WEST FRONT. “ST.JOHN.”

bursting from their tombs at the trump of doom.
The inexpertness of the mediaeval sculptor when
he attempts the nude, to which his sight was
unaccustomed, is very evident here. The effects
of the human anatomy under draperies are deli¬
cately rendered by the Wells statuary, but un¬
draped it is blockwork to him. Still, not a little
dramatic action and dignified composition is com¬
bined with this faulty presentation, and, as seen
from the ground, these broader qualities are
visible. We give, however, a photograph that was
taken from the scaffold close at hand at the time
of the repair of the front (Fig. 108).

What was, without doubt, the earliest of the
sculpture of the Wells front, we have left to the
last, because it introduces our final class of relief
work — that which centres the interest upon a
single field, and is found conspicuously in the
tympana of the great doorways. Compared with
the development of the door-sculpture abroad,
that at Wells is clearly puny and insignificant :
even for England this portal was felt to be too
small, as is proved by the insertion of the
Coronation scene peihaps some ten years later.

A. G.

FIG. !o6. — WELLS. WEST FRONT. “CORONATION
OF THE VIRGIN.”

On the supposition that at Wells the work at the
west end was begun by Bishop Jocelyn imme¬
diately on his return to England in 1218, we may
look on the tympanum-carving as being c. 1220.
At that date at Paris, Rheims, and Amiens,
there were being built the great west doorways,
thronged with statues, and with door-heads filled
with magnificent examples of relief sculpture
which are the glory of French Gothic art. The
rejection of the French ideal is very evident at
Wells : the doors are made small so as to interfere
as little as possible with the great screen of sculp¬
ture which covers the whole front. So we must
recognise that there was not the least intention to
rely on the manner of the foreign sculptor. In¬
stead, we have a diminutive representation of the
Madonna and Child (Fig. 109), set in a quatrefoil,
and flanked by two angels. The type of these last,
with their fluttering garments, we can evidently
refer to their Saxon prototypes at Bradford (see
Fig. 13, Chap. II.). And the Madonna is but a
slight remove from the figures on the twelfth-
century seals (see Figs. 40 and 55, Chap. III.):
in fact, the whole is grounded on the smaller

FIG. 107. — WELLS. WEST FRONT.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

A.G.

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

FIG. 10S. — WELLS. WEST FRONT. “ THE RESURRECTION.”

(From a photograph by Mr. T. W. Phillips, of Wells.)

Romanesque examples of English habit, such as
those at Elkstone (Fig. 48, Chap. III.) or Bar-
freston (Fig. 61, Chap. III.). The only difference
is that the Gothic quatrefoil has taken the place
of the vesica piscis of Byzantine art, and skill in
modelling has advanced beyond the incised repre¬
sentations of drapery.

The English type of doorhead sculpture is
shown, too, in all its thirteenth-century insignifi¬
cance at Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire (Fig. no),
where the quatrefoil contains only small represen¬
tations of the St. Guthlac legend taken directly
from manuscript illuminations. It is outside the
doorway, on the walls flanking it, that the im¬
portant statues are set upon detached niches.
Indeed, in what has come down to us, the only
examples in England of thirteenth-century door-
head sculpture that approach the scale of the
French, are those of the south door at Lincoln
(Fig. iii) and of the Chapter-house doors at
Westminster. The Lincoln carving is a spirited
relief representation of the Doom, distinctly
founded on manuscript traditions. The figure to

of the Christ in Judgment is set in a
quatrefoil and modelled largely and in
bold relief. The treatment of the smaller
figures has all the finesse and delicacy
which we saw in the arch-moulds round
the door, that we showed large in the last
chapter. A modern head has now been
given the figure of Christ, but the origi¬
nal draperies can be seen to be finely
rendered in a manner of their own, which
differs from that of Wells and Westmin¬
ster. We shall observe on this drapery,
which is different from that of the quire-
angels, when we come to the Lincoln
statues : here the Christ is in effect a
detached image modelled in the round.
At Westminster the figures on the
Chapter-house doorways, though on the
inside combined with reliefs in trefoils

FIG. I I 2. — WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

DOORWAY.

A.G

CHAPTER HOUSE

make up a single composition, are avowedly
statues set on pedestals. We shall
therefore deal with them as im¬
ages in the next chapter. Of
the reliefs, the central figures
over the door are gone, but the
trefoils on either side contain
figures, one of which we illustrate
(Fig. 112). They are too much
worn to allow us to infer much
as to their style, but the way in
which the angel is tilted up to fit
into the trefoil recalls the similar
awkwardness of the spandrels in
the choir-chapels and transepts,
and may be reckoned as belonging

EIG. 109. — WELLS. WEST FRONT. TYMPANUM OF PRINCIPAL DOORWAY.

to the same sculpture of c. 1250.

English Mediaeval Figure -Sculpture

6 1

A. G

FIG. III. — LINCOLN. SOUTH DOORWAY OF “ANGEL CHOIR.”

(The heads and arms of the three central figures are new.)

Notes.

Ill Wellington Monument — The Strand Improvement — -The St. Louis Exhibition —

Open Spaces

We give, by courtesy of the Committee
for the Completion of the Wellington Monument,
a series of views showing the effect of Stevens’s
model in position. One or two missing parts
have been restored from the small competition-
model (see March number of The Architectural
Review) and the object of the Committee was to
judge of the actual effect of the group with those
minimum modifications. The monument has
been open to public inspection, so that all inter¬
ested should be able to form an opinion on the
facts.

In a letter to the Times of June 30th, Lord
\\ indsor and others (members of the Architectural
Vigilance Society) have called attention to the
latest action of the London County Council in
the matter of the Strand and Holborn Improve¬
ment Scheme. The County Council made a
promising beginning some years ago when they
arranged a limited competition among distin¬
guished architects for the treatment of the crescent
and street, and offered premiums for the best
designs. The designs were judged by Mr. Norman
Shaw, but the Council took no further steps to
secure that the prize-winners’ designs should
be carried out. More recently, the Corporate
Property Committee of the Council reported in
favour of some control over the materials and
style of the buildings. The material was to
be Portland stone, the designs were to be sub¬
mitted to the Committee for approval, and in case
of their not being approved, lessees were to
submit new and amended designs, and “ to be at
liberty to retain the services of anyone of the four
architects ” who were successful in the competition.
Other architects, it will be seen, were not be
excluded, but a hint was given that the designers
already approved by the Council might with
advantage be employed. Less than this, it seems
to us, the Council could not do without stultifying
its previous action, and even if other architects
had been employed under this clause, they would
have taken care not to propose anything grossly
incongruous with the models already approved.
In either case, the new thoroughfare would have
gained in dignity and continuity of style. But
when the report was brought up, the clause
relating to the premiated architects was thrown
out by a small majority. We greatly regret that
this should have happened, and join with Lord

in Towns.

Windsor and his colleagues in the hope that the
point will be reconsidered.

There has been no announcement so far
of the intentions with respect to architecture of the
Fine Art Committee of the British Commission for
the exhibition at St. Louis. The committee, at first
a purely Academical one, has been enlarged, to its
advantage, by including representatives of various
Painter Societies. The Royal Institute of Archi¬
tects is also now represented by its President,
Mr. Aston Webb, who joins the excellent aca¬
demical representative, Mr. T. G. Jackson. We
should like to urge that it is desirable to add one
or two leading outsiders to these official members.
We do not mention names, but it would be easy
to suggest one or two that would make the com¬
mittee more fully representative, and the exhibi¬
tion in consequence more complete. Another
point we should like to suggest for the considera¬
tion of the committee, and that is the desirability
of allowing the inclusion in the exhibition of
photographs of completed work, as well as drawings
and models. The Academy has remained con¬
servative on that point, but as this exhibition in
intention is a national and not an academical one,
it would be well to meet the view of a very large
number of architects. Moreover, an exhibition
of this kind, not being likely to affect English
architecture very directly, might well be seized
upon for experimental variation. The precedent
of the recent Glasgow Exhibition is in favour of
the use of photographs ; the retrospective collec¬
tion there was a most interesting one. There is
not too much time now for architects to make
their arrangements, and we hope a scheme will
soon be published, and that it will be a liberal one.

A good deal of indignation has been roused
by a project for building on an open space in Grove
End Road, St.John’s Wood, the property of Lord
H oward de Walden. It is urged that the build¬
ings will go far to spoil a pleasant artists’ quarter.
The defence is that besides the general right of
the proprietor to do what he will with his own,
the buildings are to be artizans’ dwellings. To
this it is replied that the houses will not be used
by artizans, that the ground could have been
profitably laid out in studio building, so as to pre¬
serve the present character of the neighbourhood,
and that it is time some consideration were given

The Nezv Gare d’ Orleans , Paris.

to the preservation of open spaces not only on the
outskirts of London, but nearer the centre. A
case like this throws into relief the clash of inte¬
rests which are allowed at present to fight things
out among themselves. On the one hand there is
the pressure of population, and the pecuniary
interest of the speculative builder. On the other is
the need of air and space by this same population,
and the natural desire of those who settle in a
quarter, and invest money in their houses, for some
security that the amenities of the place shall not
be sacrificed and the value of their property re¬
duced by the action of an individual owner regard¬
less of the community. The bousing and space
problem has its best hope of solution in the de¬
velopment of quick communication and the trans-

mission of electrical power, so that industrial
garden cities may be plotted out with forethought
and limited in extent. The security of the com¬
munity against the speculative proprietor seems to
call for legislation, since at present no clause of
building acts or bye-laws gives any protection. It
may be added that the community itself in its
need of “rateable values” tends to regard open
spaces in cities with jealousy. In Paris a heavy
tax on unoccupied building sites and even on
gardens is actively forcing owners to build upon
them ; and even so far out as Neuilly gardens that
gave its character to that suburb are fast disap¬
pearing. Soon only a millionaire will be able to
afford a garden. In London we ought to look ahead
and devise some counter-check to this process.

The

New Gare d’Orl£ans, Paris.

Some day, no doubt, a history will be
written of the remarkable series of iron and glass
buildings for exhibitions and railway stations that
have been the most novel architectural develop¬
ment of our time. We give a number of views of
one of the latest and most imposing, the new
Gare d’Orleans in Paris. In these structures,
with their vast spans and the perspective network
of the rails upon their floor, we are reduced to the
purest elements of structure, of space-enclosing
and division. The decoration expended upon
them has seldom been happy, and there has been
an active source of displeasure in the smoke and
grime of steam-engines. Even so these mighty
“naves” have their impressiveness, and the play
of geometry and dynamics its appeal to the ima¬
gination, when a train curves round under the span
of a station like that of the Great Northern at York.

/?ue Ttf/e,

S' 7V/ T/o/v
flrBR/DC*
LEVEL. - h- ■■

PC&f'farTnS faTai p

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, PARIS. SKETCH PLAN.

The disagreeableness of smoke is likely to be re¬
duced in the near future ; in the Gare d’Orleans
it is abolished. The trains are brought into the
terminus from the outskirts of Paris by electric
traction and by an underground line. This is
shown in our illustration of the interior, the level
being nearly that of the river. This has one dis¬
advantage, that it cuts up the floor space of the
vast hall on the street level. On either side of
this “ nave” is an “aisle.” That on the far side
is enclosed and occupied by offices ; that on the
river front is partly occupied by luggage-lifts and
ticket-offices, but part of the great promenade
space is taken up by a huge exhibition of photo¬
graphs of places of interest on the line. An
attempt has also been made to carry out the old
idea of Mr. Watts and Courbet, by commissioning
painters to execute panels of landscapes in the
lunettes at the ends of this arcade. One of these
is seen on page 71.

The roof is a mixture of Crystal Palace and
Roman Bath models. We give views of the
great cradle before the partial filling-in by
caissons had been completed. Many will prefer
this anatomy of the structure to the finished
architecture. Monsieur Laloux was the designer-
in-chief. Subordinate to him were Messieurs
Lemaresquier and Mayeux. Our reproductions
are taken from a fine series of photographs exe¬
cuted by M. Chevojon, under the direction of
Messieurs Kulikowski, who carried out the sculp¬
ture-decoration of the building.

The New Gave d' Orleans, Pans

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, QUAI D’ORSAY, PARIS.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE FACADE FROM NORTH BANK OF THE SEINE.

mni!

The New Gave d' Orleans, Pans ,

-Si: .

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, QUAI D’ORSAY, PARIS
DETAIL OF FACADE.

Photo: A. Chevojon.

The New Gave d' Orleans, Pans.

Photo: A. Chevojon.

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, QUAI U’ORSAY, PARIS.
VIEW OF FACADE FROM NORTH-EAST.

The New Gare d' Orleans , Paris

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, PARIS. VIEW OF THE HOTEL. a. Chtvojo*. Architect.

7 he New Gave d' 0} 'leans, Paris.

w z

X w
H O

NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, PARIS.

RAL VIEW OF INTERIOR, LOOKING WEST, DURING CONSTRUCTION.

The New Gare d Orleans, Paris

VOL. XIV. — F

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEAN S, PARIS. GENERAL VIEW OF INTERIOR FROM THE Photo : A . Chevojon.

SOUTH-WEST, DURING CONSTRUCTION.

The New Gave d' Orleans , Paris

Photo: A. Chevojon

THE NEW GARE D’ORLEANS, PARIS. INTERIOR OF
BOOKING HALL, DURING CONSTRUCTION. LOOKING WEST

I L ]

'■’f

tliwiitfir"

-4

1 .

T 5T‘-

s ■ if-jj

The New Gave d' Orleans , Paris

Photo: A. Chevojon.

THE NEW CARE D'GRLEANS, PARIS.

THE BOOKING HALL, LOOKING EAST.

The' New Gave d' Orleans, Pa

ns.

THE ARCHITECTURAL

REVIEW, SEPTEMBER,
I903, VOLUME XIV.
NO. 82.

THE NEW AND THE OLD GAIETY.

FROM A DRAWING BY MUIRHEAD BONE.

The Design of London Shopfronts.

At the first glance the design of a shopfront
may seem to be outside the pale of subjects to be
here profitably considered, by reason of the strictly
commercial requirements which it must, before all
others, satisfy. It may even be said that the
word “design” cannot justly be applied to the
subject at all, and that the largest possible ex¬
panse of plate glass, set in the most limited of
frames, will alone satisfy the shopkeeper and en¬
able him to attain his engrossing purpose — the
attraction of the passer-by : for the shopkeeper
is less like the real work-a-day spider than he is
to the legendary web-spinner ; who, as the poet
tells us, invites the fly to enter, by reference to
the prettiness she will espy within. If excuse be
needed one may reply that the nice and most
economical * adjustment of constructive means to
the result to be obtained, is a cardinal virtue in

* Economist — one who spends money, time, or materials
judiciously and without waste.

the designer ; that certainly in no other class of
design is it more necessary to attain efficiency ;
and that our attention will be justified by proof
that an intelligent and fearless endeavour to fulfil
the governing conditions may produce a shopfront,
not only more efficient for its purpose — more at¬
tractive to the customer — but also architecturally
interesting.

If then we bear in mind this necessary power of
attraction as the governing condition in all cases,
it will be found to explain, not only the evolution
of the shopfront from the robust construction of
Tudor and Jacobean times to the attenuated frame¬
work of the Victorian era, but also that more re¬
cent development whose tendency, as we shall see
by reference to examples, is to increase at once its
decorative importance and its commercial value.

We have not yet freed ourselves from that pe¬
dantic little practice — -the labelling and docketting
of architectural periods ; and since this endeavour

FIG. 1. NO. 21, NEW STREET, ST. MARTIN’S LANE.

Photo : E. Dockree.

■ VOL. XIV.— G 2

The Design of London Shopfronts

FIG. 2. NO. 137, LONG ACRE.

IG. 3. NO. 138, LONG ACRE.

Photos : E. Dockree.

The Design of London Shopfronts .

to elaborate the shopfront, until it ceases to be a
mere frame and becomes an essential part of the
picture itself, coincides so nearly with the accession
of the present king ; and is, like the mediaeval or
Gothic work, based on a logical disposition of its
several parts, we may christen it by the name of
Saxe Coburg Gothic.

No inquiry into the principles which govern
these designs will be of value which fails to
emphasize the fact that the modern shopfront is
but the last in a sequence of designs, each care¬
fully adapted to the requirements of its time, and
for which the available constructive materials
were used to the best advantage. They are the
direct heirs of the privileges acquired under the
easy-going municipal control of the earlier periods :
privileges which lapse of time has converted into
easements and prescriptive rights, of very great
value, jealously guarded and maintained by their
owners.

A very cursory reference to old prints shows
that, in Tudor times, the limited stock in trade
and the small size of the premises compelled the
shopkeeper to attract attention by means of sign¬
boards ; these swung boldly over the footway and
competed, one with another, in the perspective of
the street.

This custom may still be traced in the sign¬
boards of inns, the parti-coloured spirals of the
barber’s pole, and the heroic figure of a High¬
lander taking a pinch of snuff, in all the bravery

of tartan ; one of which still, in Tottenham Court
Road, survives the coming of the Tobacco Trust.

Lombard Street,® too, still blushes in its coro¬
nation masquerade looking as sheepish as a re¬
spectable merchant might well do, who should
chance to find himself seated at his office desk
decked out in a fancy ball costume. These signs
and emblems were attractions to the eye : even
more emphatic were the appeals to the ear, by
shouts of Buy ! Buy ! Buy ! and praise of the goods
to be sold ; a method of attraction characteristic
of the booth keeper at the fair and, even now, not
unfamiliar to the frequenter of back streets within
a mile of Charing Cross.

Of the Jacobean shopfront we have probably no
remaining example. Structurally it differed but
little from its Tudor forerunners. During both
periods a fixed frame, glazed in very small panes,
allowed the light to pass to the interior of the
shop, for it must be remembered that no depend¬
ence could then be placed on artificial lighting.
This glazed frame was protected by stout flap
shutters, hung in two folds, of which the lower
were by day swung down on iron stays to form an
outer counter; on these the goods were displayed,
but slightly protected from the weather by the

* The failure of these Lombard Street signs to satisfy the
aesthetic sense, gives an apt illustration of the influence which
fitness for the purpose unconsciously exercises upon the mind.
In the old days the signs explained the business, now, we have
to ascertain the business before we can understand the signs.

[But see p. 99. — Ed., A R.]

FIG. 4. NO. I39, LONG ACRE.

Photo : E Dockree

The Design of London Shopfronts .

Photo : E. Dockree.

FIG. 5. NO. 34, HAYMARKET.

upper folds, which were hinged at the top, and
projected an equal distance over the footway ; or,
at least over the grated opening through which
light passed to the basement rooms. Georgian
variations of this outer swinging counter may still
be seen in lesser streets — take for instance the
butcher’s shop in New Street, St. Martin’s Lane
(Fig. 1), and an interesting example, 138, Long
Acre (Fig. 2), though in this latter case the
shutter no longer serves as a counter.

The tendency throughout the Georgian period
was certainly to trust less to the signboard and to
develop the glazed front, of which the panes in¬
creased and the bars diminished in size as time
went on (Fig. 3) ; the goods were then displayed
under cover, the swinging shutter being replaced
by the light-framed shutter set in a groove, still
in common use (Fig. 4).

Interesting Georgian shopfronts have within
this last year been swept away to make room for
the new street from Holborn to the Strand.

Booksellers’ Row was especially noteworthy —
while it remained we still possessed an almost
complete example of an old London business
street. Several of the premises showed most
careful designs, the details of the enriched soffits
being especially excellent. Perhaps the finest
example now to be seen is the tobacconist’s shop,
No. 34, Flaymarket (Fig. 5) ; it probably dates
from the early days of George III. A later varia¬
tion, of which there are other good examples, is
shown in the curved front of No. 181, High
Holborn (Fig. 6).

In both these cases it will be noticed that the
shopfront projects beyond the wall surface. This
right to thrust itself forward into the street was
probably limited by and equal to the projection of
the hinged shutter counter already noticed. How¬
ever it may have been originally acquired, it pro¬
duced a loss of unity between the upper and lower
portions of the building; scarcely to be noticed
while the necessity for stout piers of brick or

The Design of London Shopfronts.

masonry, and the use of many wooden bars and
divisions gave a more or less substantial character
to the lower part, it became, when these were
omitted, seriously detrimental to the street archi¬
tecture.

Commercial methods came, in an especial de¬
gree, under the influences which wrought so
marked a change in the national habits and cus¬
toms during the Victorian era. Of these we may
notice first the extraordinary improvements in the
manufacture of glass and the development of iron
construction, which reached their apotheosis in
the International Exhibition building of 1851.
That exhibition and those of 1862 and 1867,
aided by the increased facilities for travel and
national intercourse which attended the growth
of steam power, added the yeast of foreign in¬
fluences to the native composition. The close
of the American Civil War in 1865 enabled
the domineering and successful northerners to
concentrate all their energies on the develop¬
ment of their commerce; no scruple of taste, no
vestige of aesthetic consideration, restrained this

intensely practical people in the pursuit of suc¬
cess.* A better influence, but of less force, because
less easily followed, came from France. Viollet-
le-Duc recognised the necessity of adopting the
constructive advantages given by wrought iron
and steel, and made a persevering effort to use
them frankly and in a decorative way. The taste¬
ful French architects adopted gun-metal for the
framework of their shopfronts, and carried excel¬
lence of design and construction in this material
to a point which has never been attained in
England. Here, such a shopfront will invariably
have the door of wood : but the French, more con¬
sistent, made that also of gun-metal, fitting it to
the frame with the most perfect finish and skill.

Stirred by the ferment of these newer methods
the Fondon shopkeeper grew restless, he was not
satisfied merely to get rid of the small panes and

* A conclusive and recent example of American commercial
methods may, to-day, be seen in an Oxford Street shop ; where a
crowd is constantly attracted to the window by a wax figure
balancing a ball. The figure has, of course, no reference to the
goods to be sold.

FIG. 6. NO. 1 8 1 , HIGH HOLBORN.

Photo: E. Dockree.

The Design of London Shopfronts.

wooden bars, he insisted that the shopfront should
be extended to its utmost possible size. The
stallboard was lowered, the fascia raised, the side
and any intermediate piers of masonry reduced,
or cut entirely away; until the glass spread its
unsubstantial area from the pavement to near the
sills of the first floor windows, at the sacrifice of
all apparent stability. More especially is this loss
of apparent stability to be noticed in the case of
corner premises: where the projection of the shop,
beyond both the front and return walls, allows
the structural support of the building proper, now
reduced to a steel column or stanchion, to be
entirely concealed; the glass faces of the shop
fronts being connected by a scarcely perceptible
metal angle piece. The expedient sometimes
adopted of rounding or canting the harsh right
angle of the intersection gives no more sub¬
stantial result.

It is not easy to see how designers can revert
to sound construction and make the real support¬
ing members once more, not merely seen, but
elaborated and emphasized by judicious decorative
treatment ; unless some such change of plan as
we shall presently notice be brought into general
use; until, in fact, the shopkeeper is by example

persuaded that his interests are thereby advanced :
that — to use a modern idiom — there is money in it.

In so far as those shops are concerned, in which
the wares themselves exercise an irresistible
attraction (to the feminine mind), there is not,
for some time to come, likely to be any percep¬
tible change of treatment. It is to those more
numerous shops in which the goods exposed for
sale offer less attraction to the passer-by that
we must turn. In them we begin to find a very
noticeable tendency to augment this necessary
attractive quality by the design of the shopfront
itself. To the encouragement of this tendency
we must look for the satisfaction of the increasing
interest in applied design, fortunately so evident
at the present time, and the equally important
material profit of the shop owner. For, it is very
certain, that no mere aesthetic prompting will in¬
duce him to spend his money on an elaborately
planned front ; and also do what is to him of far
greater importance, consent to lessen the area of
display for his wares. The custom will only be
established if it pay.

One of the earliest, if not the first example of
this most commendable endeavour to enlist the
services of design as a power of attraction may be

FIG. 7. NO. 40, WEST STRAND. GEORGE WALTON, ARCHITECT.

Photo : B. Dockree.

The Design of London Shopfronts.

8 1

Photo : E. Dockree.

FIG. 8. NO. 5, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET. FROM THE INTERIOR.
GEORGE WALTON, ARCHITECT.

noticed in the Regent Street shop, remodelled
for the Kodak Company by Mr. George Walton.
How uninspiring was the occasion, and how
successful is the result, is easily seen by com¬
parison with the unreformed fronts of its neigh¬
bours.

One of our illustrations, the Kodak premises in
the Strand (Fig. 7), shows a more ambitious de¬
sign by the same author. Unfortunately, for our
purpose, its success depends largely on a colour
scheme which the camera fails to reproduce ; but
those who have not the opportunity to see this
for themselves, may be assured that the grey-
yellow of the wax-polished oak frame, the mellow
white of the ivory — or is it celluloid ? — the black
of the ironwork and the carefully chosen purple
blues and greys of the leaded glass, unite in most
agreeable harmony. A careful study of the illus¬
tration will, moreover, prove that what may at
first sight appear to be merely the sacrifice of
ordinary conventions to obtain novelty, is, in

reality, to be justified as a completely logical
attention to the governing conditions.

We must all have noticed that the upper part
of these high shopfronts is generally garnished
with various goods which can, by no chance,
be carefully examined, and are only seen by a
wearisome craning of the neck. These little-
heeded wares effectually intercept the light which
would be so valuable in the shop itself. For this
reason, in many important shops, the business is,
even in the daytime, conducted by artificial light:
and it is no uncommon sight, when some colour
has to be carefully matched to see the customer
and the shopman adjourn to the outer air for the
purpose. Notice then how skilfully this fact has
been observed and turned to advantage in this
example. The broad oak window head marks
the limit of the area for effective display; while it
establishes in the composition a nice adjustment
of proportion, which must have been wholly lack¬
ing without it. Above this, and recessed to the

The Design of London Shopfronts.

Ran

VALUE,

FIG. 9. NO 25, CHEAPS1DE, E.C.

A. PAESER (MAPLE AND CO., LTD.) ARCHITECT.

Photos : E. Dockree.

FIG. 10. NO. 21, HIGH STREET, MARYLEBONE.
REGINALD BLOMFIELD, ARCHITECT.

The Design of London Shopfronts.

back of the show-case, is a broad frieze of delicately
designed leaded glass, through which light passes
unimpeded to the shop within (Fig. 8). This re¬
cessed space is utilised for a lantern, by which a
diffused toplightis thrown over the goods after dark.

If one may venture to find, or rather to suggest
a fault, it would be that the top of this recess,
exposed as it is to the street, is difficult to keep
clean ; and also that the name-frieze, or fascia, is
not quite successfully attached to the pilasters.
One thinks too, that the glass frieze above would
have sufficiently blazoned the name, either by day
or night. The oaken fascia, more quietly treated
by the omission of the staring letters, would have
strengthened the composition : but it is probable
that, on this point, the designer found commerce
too strong to yield to his better judgment.

The influence of this design may already be
seen in the fronts of No. 5, Queen Victoria Street
(Fig. 8), by the same designer, No. 45, Dover
Street, and No. 25, Cheapside, by Maple & Co.
(Fig. 9) where, as the illustration shows, the light
passes through the upper part of the front to the
interior: while a sufficient area is still reserved for
display.

The narrow footways of the older streets, barely
sufficient as they are for purposes of traffic, have
no space to spare for the curious and casual cus¬
tomer. This last-named example shows a varia¬
tion of plan which will, if followed, have far-
reaching effects on our street architecture. By
setting the shopfront some four feet within the
frontage line a convenient recess is contrived,
within which he may quietly inspect the wares

FIG. II. NOS. 108 AND IIO, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C. W. CHARLES WAYMOUTH, ARCHITECT.

The Design of London Shopfronts .

Photo : E. Dockree.

FIG. 12. NO. 5, OLD BOND STREET. A. N. PATERSON, ARCHITECT.

displayed, while the main stream of the traffic
passes unimpeded. The small example of this
new treatment No. 21, High Street, Marylebone
(Fig. io), shows that the advantage gained by a
judicious breaking away from mere routine is
already appreciated, in districts which can hardly
be expected to find profit in mere aesthetic con¬
sideration. Here also we trace the old Georgian
treatment of No. 181, High Holborn, again assert¬
ing itself. No. 20 was not intended for illustra¬
tion, but is left, by the whim of the camera, to
compare with the more architectural treatment.

It will be noticed that these are all examples of
beam construction ; only a slight reference to those
other premises, where the shop is set in an arched
opening, is necessary to show that success is but
little likely to result from that practice. With
few exceptions, the span of the arch is out of all
proportion to the width of the piers which carry
it : and its curve is, for the same reason, reduced
to a flat segment ; while the most unsatisfactory
depth of reveal can rarely persuade even the un¬
initiated that it is doing the work it pretends to
do and which a steel girder is really doing in secret.
No ! a beam construction is inevitably right : but

it must be unconcealed and made visible by more
logical treatment — beneficial alike to the pocket
of the shopkeeper and the self respect of the
designer.

The setting back of the shopfront will still
allow the fascia, as in the Cheapside example, to
flaunt its obtrusive lettering on the very boundary
of the frontage ; while the necessity for blinds and
shutters will be, if not quite superseded, at least
very much reduced ; the easily tempted customers
will find themselves, literally, in the shop before
they are aware ; and the anxious shopkeeper need
be under no apprehension that they will stray
unconsciously upon a rival's premises. By adopt¬
ing this plan, the booksellers of Charing Cross
Road may display their tattered volumes, undis¬
turbed by the pertinacious summons of the West¬
minster Borough Council. Very valuable assist¬
ance in the attainment of these aims is likely to
follow the use of armoured concrete, a combina¬
tion of materials by which the most surprising
results have already been obtained, though in
England it is, at present, but little known.

Nos. 108 and no, High Holborn (Fig. ii)
though not precisely to be classed with the

The Design of London Shopfronts.

Photo : E. Dockree.

FIG. 13. NO. 212, PICCADILLY. C. R G. HALL, ARCHITECT.

Cheapside example, certainly emphasize the ad¬
vantage to the general composition when the shop¬
front is recessed : though here the setting back is
rather apparent than real. A concealed girder is
really doing the work, but the broad stone frieze
beneath the bay windows does much to satisfy the
demand for stability ; it gives a sense of structural
security and the shopfront takes its place securely
beneath it. In this example the upper part was
fitted to the existing wooden shopfront, and there
can be no doubt that the satisfactory result is
largely due to the equality of the new stonework
and painted woodwork, in colour and tone ; when
the stone weathers to its usual grey this advan¬
tage will be lost.

The importance of colour, in any scheme to
attract the eye, cannot, of course, be over-esti¬
mated. Examples of its use are becoming more
frequent; the tendency being to enlist the services
of coloured materials, mosaic, glazed brick, etc.,

rather than to trust to merely applied colour. It
was evident, however, when we considered the
design of the Kodak premises, that our illustra¬
tions fail to help us to appreciate these effects, and
we will therefore, with this slight reference, con¬
fine our attention to the structural qualities.

There are other examples of variation in plan
which aim only at extended area for display, with¬
out intention to affect the proportions, or indeed,
in any way improve the composition. In Bond
Street, for instance, a picture-dealer’s shop is
pierced by a narrow passage extending some
twenty feet from the street fitted with glass show
cases on either side. It thus forms a little Bur¬
lington Arcade of its own. Another, a jeweller’s
in Oxford Street, has the shopfront curiously
curved to increase its length ; these are, however,
not examples which one wishes to see followed.

Again, in Holborn and Regent Street, there are
examples in which the shopfront forms three sides

The Design of London Shopfronts .

of a rectangle, the fourth side being open to the
street; room being found for a detached show-case
in the centre of the foot-space so formed. These
variations of plan seem to give evidence of a slowl v-
growing conviction that the Victorian shopfront
is not entirely satisfactory, even from a com¬
mercial point of view, and that the shop-keeper is
not immovably prejudiced in favour of estab¬
lished custom — that he is open to conviction : and
it may fairly be assumed that he will not resent
the addition of good detail and sound construc¬
tion, if they do not curtail the commercial
advantages.

Another noticeable tendency, due to the widely-

extended business of trusts and companies, having
many premises scattered over the town, is to give
them a common character of design. It is re¬
markable how quickly the eye becomes trained to
observe this sequence of ideas. The Piccadilly
premises of Slater’s (Fig. 13) are an example of this
method; the design selected may, or may not,
commend itself; its interest lies, for us, in the
endeavour to induce the passer-by to infer a fact,
not to force him to read it by obtrusive lettering.

Shops which deal in foreign-made wares fre¬
quently advertise the fact by enlisting the services
of a foreign designer. No. 21, Bond Street (Fig.
14) is a good example of French work. Especially

Mil

— ll

I* S

il ;

Lrr-

1 hi m

T !

Mill 1

FIG. 14. NO. 21, OLD BOND STREET.

Photo : E Dockree

A rchitectural Education.

to be commended is the freshness given by the
omission of the stereotyped mouldings, copied from
stone originals, and the use, in their place, of
mouldings suited to the position and material.
Note, too, the pleasing departure from strict
symmetry in the position of the doorway.

This design also serves to illustrate the increas¬
ingly frequent practice which extends the shop¬
front over the first floor. By this means the
weight of the superimposed wall is reduced, and
a better, or at any rate, new proportion is es¬
tablished.

Here the upper and lower parts of the building
are in the same plane, and the projecting balcony
with its iron railing and the arcaded heads of the
first floor lights, though of wood, establish a
sufficiently satisfactory relation between them :
greater indeed than is obtained by more appar¬
ently structural examples of narrower frontage,
where the first floor opening is treated as an arch.
Such an arch is rarely structural, and, springing
as it does from narrow pilasters, is too depen¬
dent on the apparent abutment given by the ad¬
jacent buildings; which may be at any time with¬
drawn, or reduced by the larger openings of a new
treatment. There is an example in Oxford Street
where a wide three-centred arch is interpolated
in a restless front with most unsatisfactory results.
As a means of display this first floor shopfront is
of little service: but as a means of attraction, by
reason of its contrast with neighbouring premises,
it is undoubtedly very effective. It must, how¬
ever, be remembered that this advantage is
lessened as often as the example is followed.

The inclusion of the first floor in the shopfront
has been carried a step further in a detached
block of buildings on the south of New Oxford
Street ; there a second terrace of shops, quite in¬
dependent of those on the street level, is approached
from a stone stair and open loggia. The limited
success of this treatment, either commercially or
as a design, does not suggest that it is likely to be
extensively followed.

Many shop premises, even in our principal
streets, still retain in the upper walls the regular
window openings, suitable to the time when the
shopkeeper lived permanently on the premises ;
but this is a forsaken custom. The upper floors
are now used as show-rooms, and the topmost as
work-rooms. By attention to this fact, and the
skilful adaptation of the windows to the altered pur¬
pose which they are to serve, the designer will
find frequent opportunity to produce new effects.

If then we do right to see the basis of design in
these innovations, called for as they are by the
altered conditions of modern life, the mere striving
for novelty for its own sake, not unknown in this
and in other classes of design, should give way to
more worthy methods of attaining freshness of
treatment.

In fact, from a real business-like endeavour to
improve the commercial value of the premises,
we may hopefully expect those inexorable laws
which at first seemed to forbid any advantage to
the consideration of the subject, to ensure, as time
goes on, the evolution of really admirable shop¬
fronts; and consequently a greatly increased merit
and interest in our street architecture.

Howard Ince.

Architectural Education.

IV. — Great Britain ( continued ).

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LIVERPOOL.

By F. M. Simpson.

There are two day courses for architec¬
tural students at University College, Liverpool.
The first is a two years’ course, which was started
in 1894 ; the second is a three years’ course, lead¬
ing to the degree of B.A., which was only com¬
menced two years ago.

The two years’ course : In the first year lectures
are delivered on the construction employed and
materials used in the carcase of a building ; on
stresses and thrusts, perspective and sciography,
and on Greek and Roman buildings, and English
mediaeval work. All lectures are illustrated by
diagrams, models, and lantern slides. After the
lectures exercises are set bearing on the subjects

lectured upon, which are worked out in the studio.
There is no copying of plates, except in the case
of the classic orders. In building construction
simple problems are given, which each student
works out assisted by drawings and by notes
taken in the lectures. By this means a student
has from the first to think for himself, and to
exercise his imagination. Two afternoons each
week are devoted to drawing from casts and the
antique, and in the summer term a certain amount
of time is given to outdoor sketchingand measuring.

In the second year the lectures include early
Christian and Byzantine architecture in the East
and in Italy, Romanesque and Mediaeval architec¬
ture in France, England, and Germany, and the
Renaissance in Italy, France, and England. The
building construction lectures deal with the finish-

A rchitectural Education.

ng of a building; with doors, windows, staircases,
etc. — when the subjects set offer more scope for
design — plastering, painting, plumbing, drainage,
.etc., including, of course, the materials used.
Freehand drawing and sketching are continued,
and the more advanced students draw from the
life, and model from casts. A special set of lec¬
tures is delivered by the Professor of Botany on
the structure and diseases of timber, and lectures
on graphic statics are given in the engineering
department. The greater part of the last term is
spent on a design for a small country house (or
some such subject), and as complete a set of draw¬
ings as possible is prepared by each student.

The three years' course : Students are required
before commencing the course to pass the pre¬
liminary examination of the University in English
language, history, mathematics, Latin, elementary
mechanics, and one of the following : Greek, Ger¬
man, French ; and in their first year to attend
lectures on and pass the intermediate examination
for the ordinary B.A. degree in (i) a language ;
(2) history or English literature; (3) physics, or
pure or applied mathematics. In their first year
they also attend lectures in the architectural de¬
partment, and work out most of the exercises set
there. In their second year the work is much the
same as for students taking the two years’ course,

with the addition of certain engineering lectures
and classes under the Professor of Engineering.
The work for the third year has not yet been
definitely settled, but will lie in the main tutorial,
and will deal with more advanced building con¬
struction problems. A more intimate acquaint¬
ance with the principles and chief examples of
two or more periods of ancient and modern archi¬
tecture will be required than can be gained from
short series of lectures. The subjects for the
final examination, on the result of which the B.A.
degree is conferred, are (1) History of Ancient and
Mediaeval Architecture; (2) History of Modern
Architecture ; (3) Construction and planning of
buildings, including Sanitation, Graphic Statics;
(4) Architectural drawing, and any two of certain
optional subjects of which the most important are
Freehand drawing, modelling and applied me¬
chanics. Visits are frequently paid to buildings
on College ground in course of erection, the plans
of which are hung in the studio, so that students
can study the actual working drawings and com¬
pare them with the buildings. Visits are also
occasionally paid to workshops, and to old build¬
ings of interest ; but, unfortunately, not many of
the latter exist in or near Liverpool.

The following is the complete Time Table of
the Day Classes for the first two years : —

FIRST YEAR.

Classes.

Day and Hour.

Term.

Autumn,

Lent,

Summer.

Mon.

Tues. j Wed.

Thurs.

Fri.

Sat.

History of Architecture

10. 30-11.30

! A.L.S.

Materials and Construction . .

10. 30-n. 30

1 A.L.S.

Studio Work . . . . . . . . |

9.30-10.30

9.30-1.0

9.30-I.0

9.30-IO.30

j A.L.S.

II. 30-1.0

2. 0-4.O

2.O-4. 0

1 1. 30-I.0

1 9.30-1.0

2. 0-4.O

A.L.

' 9-3°-IO-3°

\ S

” . t

.. II. 3O-I.O

| J

Perspective and Sciography . .

9.30-1.0

^Stresses and Thrusts . .

.. 10. 30-11. 30

Sketching

. . 2. 0-4.0

Freehand Drawing

2. 0-4.O

A.L.S.

* For Certificate Course only. A Course of Lectures (with class) on Graphic Statics , for degree students only, will be given in the Engineering Laboratories,
on Tuesdays, 2.0-4.30 Summer Term only.

SECOND YEAR.

Classes.

Day and Hour.

Term.

Autumn,

Lent,

Summer.

Mon.

Tues.

Wed.

Thurs.

Fri.

Sat.

History of Architecture

IO. 30-11. 30

A.L.

, , , ,

9.30-IO.30

Materials and Construction . .

10. 30-11. 30

A.L.

. • . , . .

9.30-10.30

Studio Work

2. 0-4.O

9.30-1.°

2. 0-4.O

A.L.S.

9.30-10.30

] A.L.

. 1

11.30- 1.0

II. 30-1.0

10. 30-1.0

2.O-4 0

A.S.

3. 0-4.0

Sketching

2. 0-4.O

A.L.S.

Freehand Drawing or Modelling

IO.O-I.O

. .

A.L.S.

Structure and Diseases of Timber . .

2. 0-3.0

A Course of Lectures on Engineering, for degree students only, will be given in the Engineering Laboratories, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10.30-11.30,
and on Saturdays, 10.0-11.0, Summer Term only. . .

Students obtaining a First-class Certificate at the end of the two years’ course are exempted from the Intermediate Examination of the R.I.B.A.

A rch itectura l E due a tion .

The need for a systematic course of day train¬
ing in architecture is now more generally recog¬
nised than it was when the two years’ course was
started in Liverpool nearly nine years ago, and
few architects who have given any attention to
the matter will deny its advantages. It is a most
satisfactory sign that in many of the large towns in
England — London, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield,
Newcastle, as well as in Edinburgh and in Ire¬
land, day schemes of architectural education have
been recently or are now under consideration.

In courses of the character I have described
students get more into touch with actual materials
and their working than is generally possible in an
office. Their studies are systematically arranged ;
none of their time is wasted over drawings or
tracings which they do not understand ; they are
obliged to show details of construction more fully
than is customary on actual working drawings, on
which much is generally omitted — being under¬
stood by both architect and builder; and the
simple problems they have to tackle assist them
to grasp more complex ones when they come
across them. Moreover, they have to think for
themselves from the first, and yet they secure
more personal supervision than can ever be given
by a busy architect in practice. An additional
advantage of a preliminary training is that it weeds
out the unfit. No articles are signed. At the end
of the first year it is generally possible to judge if
a pupil possesses the necessary qualifications and
to advise accordingly.

Differences of opinion may exist regarding the
details of any course. That is only natural, but I
feel strongly that in a preliminary training too
much stress cannot be laid on the advantages of
lectures on old architecture. There is, amongst
some, a tendency to decry their value; but this is,
I think, largely due to a misunderstanding of what
such lectures mean. If they merely generate a
thirst for names, dates, and dimensions, they are
useless ; but if, on the other hand, they are so
arranged as to give the student an insight into
the planning, construction, and general principles
of buildings, they are of the utmost value. They
cannot be commenced too early. To defer them
until a student has begun to deal with practical
problems for himself is likely to foster a taste for
cribbing. A course of lectures on old architecture
should interest a student, enlarge his mind, and
stimulate his imagination— not cram his brain.
Much of what he hears he may forget, especially
as regards detail, but that is immaterial so long as
he catches a little of the spirit of the old designs.

The great point is that no student’s education
should proceed merely on technical lines. It
should be on liberal lines. What does it matter
if some of the knowledge he acquires has little

commercial value ? — a man’s life is not entirely
bound by considerations of £ s. d. It was partly
for this reason that I welcomed the institution of
the degree course. I had for years advised stu¬
dents to continue their general studies after com¬
mencing their architectural, but with little success.
They did not realise their value, and there was
no visible goal to which they tended. The degree
course rendered them compulsory up to a certain
point. No doubt the ideal scheme would be for
all students to take first their degree in the usual
arts or science subjects, and then to commence
their architectural studies. I have had four or
five students graduates of either Oxford or Cam¬
bridge, and there is no doubt that they learn more
quickly than those who have not had equal
advantages, partly because they are older, but
principally because they have learnt howto learn,
which few schoolboys seem to have accomplished.
But such a course is impossible with all or even
with most students. Only a few can afford a pre¬
liminary three or four years, to be followed by an
architectural course and then by pupilage. A
compromise is therefore necessary and also pre¬
sents many advantages; by it a student can con¬
tinue his liberal studies and at the same time
commence his professional education. Moreover,
his excursions into the former are not carried
unnecessarily far. He is not called upon to
specialize in any. He dips far enough to be given
a taste for one or more subjects, which he can
afterwards develop at his leisure, and so has an
advantage over other men whose training has
ended at school. The B.A. after his name is
merely the crown of his efforts as a student ; it
gives him no professional position. It will be as
necessary for him to enter an architect’s office and
gain experience as for a student who has only
taken a two years’ course, or for one who has
taken no course at all.

As regards the limits of any preliminary course,
there should be no misunderstanding as to what
can be accomplished and what can not. No
attempt should be made to supersede pupilage,
although the articles of pupilage will of necessity
be modified, the term of years made shorter, the
premium demanded less. The course should not
be too long — two years is rather short ; three years
is better. At the end of a course a man should
not only be capable of reaping to the full the
advantages of working on drawings for actual
work, but he should also have advanced so far as
to be of some assistance in an office. The result
should be ot mutual advantage to architect and
to student.

A student’s studies ought not to cease with
the end of the course. Side by side with his
practical office work he should take up problems

VOL. xiv. — H

A rch itectu ra l Ed uca tion .

more or less advanced and solve them as best he
can. That is where evening work comes in. Two
evening design classes are held, one elementary,
the other more advanced, and most of the students
in these are men who have passed through the
regular day classes and are now in offices. The
result is good for the students, who keep in touch
with one another, and satisfactory for the teacher,
who does not entirely lose sight of them when
their work is beginning to possess most in¬
terest.

At the present moment engineers are discussing
the advantages and disadvantages of the “ sand¬
wich ” system, by which students will spend six
months of the year in classes and six months in a
workshop. Much might be said for this arrange¬
ment as regards architectural students, if architects
would agree to allow their pupils to be away from
the office half of their first year with them. If this
were considered possible, the whole of the first year
and the first half of the second and third years
would be spent in systematic study; the second
half of the second year and the remainder of the
term after the second half of the third year being
spent in the office. Such a scheme would be
impossible to work without the cordial co-opera¬
tion of architects in practice, but it possesses
some advantages and might be worthy of conside¬
ration.

In conclusion I quote a short extract from a
paper read by Professor Ware, of Columbia Col¬
lege, New York, in 1888 : — “ We must be content
in many things, if not in all, merely to open the
gates of knowledge — to point the road. All we
have to do with is, in most cases, the elements of
knowledge. ... So long is art, and so short
the time at command, it is needful to save the
student’s time and labour to the utmost,
while compelling him to discover things for him¬
self, so to organise and arrange the objects of
study that he may promptly find what he seeks.”

THE ARCHITECTURAL DIVISION,
KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON.

By R. Elsey Smith.

The course arranged for Matriculated Students
in the Architectural Division of this College is of
three years duration, but under certain conditions
students who have already obtained external dis¬
tinctions may be entered as second year students,
completing the course in two years. To all such
students the College certificate in Architecture
and the associateship of the College are open,
provided they show on the completion of their
course that satisfactory progress has been made.

The division is also open to other students who
do not feel able to devote three years to a col¬
legiate course, or who do not desire to take up
the full prescribed course ; such students are
admitted either as full time students or may take
up individual courses of lectures or the studio.
A special course is arranged for students who have
already had training or instruction, enabling them
to take up most of the courses of lectures in a
single session and to devote at the same time con¬
siderable time to drawing.

For matriculated students the full course is so
arranged as to provide for the continuation of the
student’s general instruction, as well as the special
subject of architecture during both the first years,
but at the same time secures him from the first a
considerable proportion of time in the studio.

During his first year he attends courses in the
following general subjects : Mathematics, me¬
chanics and physics, and geology, and in his
special subject lectures in architectural history
and building construction and geometrical draw¬
ing, besides working in the carpenter’s shop one
afternoon and in the studio at both architectural
drawing and construction.

During his second year he attends a course in
chemistry, and in his special subject lectures on
building construction, architectural history,
strength of materials, and land surveying includ¬
ing field work, and devotes the remainder of his
time to drawing.

In the third year he attends lectures on archi¬
tectural history, ornament, specifications, sanitary
science, and professional practice, a course of
architectural modelling, and devotes the re¬
mainder of his time to drawing.

Students taking courses for shorter periods
compress such of the lectures, as by arrangement
with the Professor it is decided they shall attend,
into the one or two years, devoting less time to
the studio.

The instruction in the studio is made as far as
possible individual, and adapted to the capabilities
and requirements of each student. It is open
to any student in this division to take up single
courses of lectures in other faculties ; for instance,
some of the courses prescribed for matriculated
students or a modern language, etc.

The fees for matriculated students are sixteen
guineas per term for the first six terms, and
eighteen guineas per term for the last three terms.
The fees for other students depend upon the
courses they take up and the amount of time spent
in the studio.

The College has been equipped, largely through
the generosity of the Carpenters’ Company, with
a good collection of architectural casts, photo¬
graphs and diagrams, including the collection

The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

formed by the late Sir Gilbert Scott for his
academy lectures, and a small library of architec¬
tural works, and with a considerable collection of
diagrams relating to building construction, and
samples of building materials and models.

THE ARCHITECTURAL SCHOOL,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

By the late T. Roger Smith.

At University College, London, lectures on
Architecture as a Fine Art, and on Construc¬
tion, have been given since 1841 every session
by professors, each of whom have been operating
architects — Professors Donaldson, Hayter Lewis,
and Roger Smith. The original direction given by
Donaldson has been more or less followed by his
successors. The pupils of architects formed the
main source of supply to the classes, and they
•came there to get some systematic knowledge of
the history of Architecture and of the materials
used in building, and the mode of utilizing them.
The ordinary custom has been to have a senior
and a junior class, and a lecture in each class in
-each division weekly, so that it took two years

for a student to pass through. Professor Lewis
continued this with a one year’s course, and in the
present regime this method has been adhered to.

There has been no drawing school till latterly,
when means to open an evening drawing class
were furnished by the liberality of the Carpenters’
Company, but it was not a success. The same
company has furnished teachers for evening classes
in estimating and measuring, and also in drawing
building construction. These have been suc¬
cessful.

The general result has been a moderate amount
of fairly sustained success. Excellent relations
between the professors and the students have been
the rule, and many old students are now prosper¬
ous architects in full practice, including at least
one of the newly appointed professors. A few
Japanese students, one Chinese, one Indian, and
a few ladies have attended the classes.

No attempt has been made to turn this course
into what the Architectural Association furnishes
— namely, a complete curriculum full of informa¬
tion of all sorts that may come in usefully ; and
as a consequence since the Architectural Associa¬
tion courses have been set up the popularity of
this College has gone down.

The Palace at Knossos, Crete.

(. Second and Concluding Article. For First Article see May Number.)

Coming now to the eastern block of the
palace, the floor of the north or right hand
side, including the room of the olive press, is
some fifteen feet above that on its south side, and
may be still regarded as a basement, there being
no halls or residential rooms in it. Over “the
room of the olive press ” and “ the corridor of the
bays "’was, according to Dr. Evans, probably the
King’s Megaron, which, judging from the basement
walls, had (A) a portico of one column in-antis
facing the central court, (B) a vestibule, and (C)
a great hall, 45 ft. by 38 ft., with three columns
across the centre. Assuming the room of the
olive press to have been about 10 ft. high, the
level of the floor of the Megaron would be the
same as the megaron or throne room in the western
block.

The most interesting portion of the whole
palace, however, is the south-east block, be¬
cause here we find the actual living rooms of
the Minoan King and Queen. Its preservation is
probably due to the fact that it was built on
ground at a much lower level, and was buried by
the falling in of the superstructure, in the same

way as the stores and magazines of the rest of the
palace. The principal hall faced a terrace about
35 ft. wide, which we may assume was planted
with trees and laid out with flower beds ; there
would appear also to have been other terraces
below (see Fig. 1). The hall to which we refer
measured about 27 ft. wide by 18 ft. deep, and
was the largest room of the palace without inter¬
mediate supports. It was enclosed on the east
and south sides with a peristyle, and had no fewer
than eleven doors (see Fig. 6, reproduced from
Mr. Theodore Fyfe’s restoration) ; seven of these
led out to the Peristyle, the other four to a room
which Dr. Evans calls the “ hall of the double
axes ” — from the marks on its limestone blocks ;
this room being lighted from a court beyond and
divided from the same by two columns in-antis.
These two rooms, the outer one opening on to a
terrace and the other one lighted from the court,
would seem to be the withdrawing-rooms, espe¬
cially as, out of the further room on the left, is a
door opening to a passage leading direct to a room
called the Queen’s Megaron, which seems to have
been her boudoir; this room was lighted on the

H 2

The Palace at Knossos , Crete .

•o iro

I I I I I I I I I I I METRES

LONGITUDINAL section

PLAN OF LOWER FLOOR

( From R I. B. A. Journal.)

FIG. 6. — HALLS ON EAST SLOPE. PLANS AND RESTORED SECTIONS OF THE QUADRUPLE STAIRCASE,
THE HALL OF THE COLONNADES, AND THE MEGARON OF THE DOUBLE-AXES.

south side by three windows facing a narrow court
and had on its east side an open portico, with
two columns and responds, facing another court.
There were four openings on this side, one towards
the north being the doorway, the other three had
a stone bench between, which projected to form a
seat on both sides, viz., in the megaron and in the
portico. The room in the rear on the west side
was a bathroom, and further west a room sup¬
posed, on account of its stone floor, to have been
a treasury or jewel room. Beyond this treasury,
and reached by a passage from the Queen’s
Megaron, is a room in which a stone couch was
found and, on its east side, that which Dr. Evans
states is the nearest approach to a modern w.c. as
yet found on any ancient site, viz., a chamber
7 ft. deep and 4 ft. 6 in. wide, on the side walls
of which were grooves in which were fixed the
sides of a seat ; beyond the grooves the stone floor
ceased leaving an open trench which communicated
direct with a horizontal drain, 2 ft. high and
1 ft. 6 in. wide, covered over with stone slabs and
taking the drainage and wastes from other parts
of the palace. In front of this chamber and out¬
side the same, was a square hole, originally covered
over with a stone slab which, when raised, allowed
the closet to be flushed.

From the Queen’s Megaron a private staircase
in stone led to upper chambers probably con¬
taining the sleeping apartments of the queen.

On the west side of the court in the rear of the
“ Hall-of-the-double-axes ” is another court with
a peristyle on two sides, called the “hall of the
colonnades” on plan, and a staircase in four flights
beyond. The plan and section through staircase
and court are shown in Fig. 6, and sections through
the court showing each front facing the same in
Fig. 7, these being conjectural restorations made
by Mr. Theodore Fyfe, and based on the actual
remains. In Fig. 7 the north wall shows the solid
stone balustrade or parapet of the upper gallery,
which was found in-situ, and gave Mr. Fyfe his
evidence for the actual thickness of stone balus¬
trade (2 ft. 11 in.), and consequently the size of the
square abacus surmounting the column which
carried it, and the beams across the peristyle.
The height of column, base, and capital was
11ft. 2 in. The stone base was 2 ft. in di¬
ameter, which, allowing a margin of 3^ in., gave
1 ft. 5 in. for the lower diameter of the column ;
with these dimensions Mr. Fyfe has restored the
column in accordance with the proportions shown
in the “ Temple fresco,” to which we shall return
again. On the parapet of this stone balustrade were

The Palace at Knossos , Crete „

put the bases of an upper order, which Mr. Fyfe
has restored, taking his height from that which
would be reached by continuing the upper flight
of the quadruple staircase (for which there was
clear evidence) so as to bring it to the level of the
great central court. This stone staircase, in four
flights, is the most exceptional find of the whole
palace, and, as Dr. Evans remarks, “ is probably
unparalleled in the history of excavation ; flights
of stairs one above another being unknown even
in Pompeii.” The flights are 6 ft. wide with a
central wall newel, 3 ft. thick, which allows of
three steps on the return, as shown in P'ig. 6.
The steps have a rise of 5! in., and a tread of
1 ft. 6 in. They consist of solid slabs of stone
built 7 in. into the wall on each side, and the
upper step is bedded about 6 in. on the lower
one.

The west wall (Fig. 7) shows that the staircase
was lighted as regards the lower flight by a window
overlooking the court and the upper part through
an open peristyle of columns resting on a solid
stone balustrade, rising in two tiers, and follow¬
ing the rake of the stairs, an arrangement which,
as Dr. Evans observes, “ anticipates in some re-

™ CHEWING NORTH WALL - *

spects the effect of an Italian renaissance palace,”
a happy suggestion which will recall to many
travellers similar features throughout Italy.

The upper flight of the staircase probably led
into the portico of the Megaron, and the four
flights show that there existed in this portion of the
palace three storeys, viz., ground, first and second
floors. The stone staircase still in situ, by the
side of the two great halls referred to, led to a first-
floor corridor, which was continued up to the
staircase of four flights already mentioned.

As will be seen from the plan in the first article,
there are still further researches to be made,
especially in the two parts marked “ earlier build¬
ings,” and already this year at some distance
north east of the palace has been found a house
of fine construction with the remains of two
storeys and three flights of stairs. The most
remarkable discovery of this year, however, is that
which has been made on the north-west side of
the west court, a description of which was com¬
municated to the Times a short time ago. No
plan has yet been published, but we gather from
the description that, in the examination of the
northern boundaries of the west court, a second

KNOSSOS

SECTIONS OF THE HALL OF THE COLONNADES RESTORED

X-au w . . f < r1 _ IJ I* Htras-

mu °r C 1 1 .f 1 , <„ 1 1° _ \%‘r

( From R.I.B. A. Journal.)

FIG. 7.

The Palace at

paved court at a lower level was found with a
flight of steps or seats on the south and east sides
somewhat similar to those we referred to in the
• first article as existing at Phsestos, but of much
greater extent and importance. On the east side
there were eighteen steps occupying a breadth of
35 ft. On the south side the flight was broader
(50 ft.) but of less height. According to Dr. Evans,
“the principal function for which this stepped
area was designed was certainly of a spectacular
nature." The plan is not fully systematized,
“but,” as Dr. Evans states, “we have here the
germ of all future theatres. It seems to grow out
of the informal use for sitting purposes of the
spacious stepways in vogue in the Minoan palaces.”
At the junction of the double flight and at the
south-east angle was a bastion with a paved plat¬
form, which may have served as a kind of Royal
Box for the Minoan king and queen and their
courtiers.

Up to the present no certain date has been
given to the palace. “ The best chronological
data,” Dr. Evans states, “are supplied by the lid
of an Egyptian alabastron found near the northern
bath. The lid h as a beautifully cut cartouche of
King Khyan of the fifteenth dynasty, who is sup¬
posed to have reigned about the eighteenth centu¬
ry B.c.” The perfection of the work of the
palace, in its architecture and decoration, points
at, as Dr. Evans states, “ long centuries of earlier
development.” There are also the remains of an
earlier palace of about 2100 b.c., and fragments of
vases found which may go back to 2800 B.c.
Others of Egyptian vases of diorite and obsidian
dating from the 4th millenium B.c., and lastly stone
weapons and implements, primitive pottery, and
idols, which carry back still further the first
occupation of the site.

The Mycenaean Order.

We have already referred, in speaking of Mr.
Fyfe’s conjectural restorations, to columns which,
following the traces of their bases and the thick¬
ness of the stone balustrade they supported, he
has reversed; in other words, turned them up¬
side down, the diameter being greatest at the top.
Prior to Dr. Evans’s discoveries, the only actual
evidence of this singular reversal was shown (1) in
portions of and traces on the wall of the semi¬
detached shafts which flanked the entrance door¬
way of the tomb of Agamemnon, (2) in a fragment
(4 ft. 3 in. high) of a semi-detached shaft on one
side of the entrance to a second tomb which has
been called after Mr. Schliemann, and (3) in the
representation of a column in the bas-relief over
the Lion gate, all at Mycenae. In all these ex¬
amples, however, the order employed was purely

Knossos, Crete.

decorative, in which it might have been permissible
to reverse the diameter. Messrs. Perrot and
Chipiez, however, in their conjectural restoration
of the portico-in-antis of the Megaron, at Tiryns,*
accepted and reproduced them as actual detached
columns, and the truth of their restoration is
borne out by the representations in what is known
as the “Temple fresco,” at Knossos, to which we
shall return later on. The same fresco shows one
of the capitals of the columns without a square
abacus, so that the column and superstructure in
the bas-relief of the Lion gate may be taken as a
conventional representation of the order complete,
viz., a shaft with capital supporting a beam on
which rest the round logs (shown in a series of
four circular disks), which carried the flat mud
roof. The earliest example of a temple in which
it would seem that columns of wood were at first
employed to carry the entablature, afterwards being
replaced by others in stone, is the Temple of
Hera, at Olympia. When the Germans excavated
the Altis, at Olympia, the columns and capitals
found on the site of the Temple of Hera (which
was of the Doric order) were so varied in their
diameter and profiles as to suggest that they were
of many periods, dating from the sixth century
down even to Roman times. This fact, coupled
with an accidental note by Pausanias, in which,
describing this temple, he says: “One of the
columns of the Opisthodomos is in oak,” has led
archaeologists to the conclusion that when first
built (according to Dr. Dorpfeld, in the eleventh
century B.c.) all the columns employed were in
timber, and that where a column showed signs of
deterioration it was replaced by one in stone. f It
does not follow, however, that when changing the
material the Greeks copied the same form in
stone — a shaft or single balk of timber would be
equally capable of supporting a superincumbent
mass with the lesser diameter at the bottom,! but
in stone and built in a series of drums, it would
no longer have the same resistance to crushing
weight which a balk of timber would possess, and,
further, the new material (stone) was much heavier
and had to carry its own weight. In replacing the
timber shaft with a stone column they would seem
to have retained the same width of the upper
diameter necessary, with the echinus moulding and

* “Art in Primitive Greece,” Vol. II., Fig. 298.
f Similar transformations are said to have taken place in
two other ancient temples attributed to the seventh century b.c.,
viz., in the archaic. Temple of Hera, at Argos, and in the
Temple of Apollo, at Thermon, in vEtolia. In the latter case
the peristyle of the temple had five columns on the eastern
front, fifteen on the flank, and a row of columns down the
centre of the cella.

+ We are informed by timber experts that the trunk of a
tree when stripped of its bark and utilised as a column or
support weathers much better if reversed.

The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

i it in

( From R.I.B.A. Journal.)

FIG. 8. — THE MYCENAEAN ORDER, BASED BY MR. FYFE ON THE REPRESENTATIONS
IN THE “TEMPLE FRESCO.”

abacus, to carry the entablature,* and increased
the lower diameter so as to cover an area slightly
greater than that of the original raised stone
base which was in consequence cut away. If the
column seen by Pausanias had lasted a century or
two longer the Germans might have found in the
opisthodomos the original stone base. This
reasoning is purely hypothetical, but it suggests
the solution of an important problem, viz., the
transition from the reversed Mycenaean column
in timber to the earlier stone columns as found
in Syracuse.

What we have called “ the Mycenaean Order ”
is shown in a fresco discovered at Knossos, of
which a reproduction in colour was published in the
“ R.I.B.A. Journal” of the 20th December, 1902.
This fresco which was found in a room to the
north of the Palace, represents, in the centre, a
portico of two columns in antis raised aloft, Hanked
by two other porticos of one column in antis at a
lower level. In Fig. 8 is a reproduction from Mr.
Fyfe’s drawing of the columns shown in the fresco
with their bases and capitals. The brilliant colours
of the fresco were purely decorative, and did not
represent the materials employed, but the chequer
pattern of black and white above the architrave
suggests a stone construction as actually found in
the court of the quadruple staircase. The capital

* In these three temples just mentioned the architrave and
other parts of the entablature are assumed to have been in
timber, on account of the wide inter-columniation.

of the right-hand portico is crowned with a square
abacus which is not shown in the left-hand exam¬
ple, and Mr. Fyfe in his restorations utilizes the
former for the ground floor order and the latter
for that of the upper story. As the base drawn in
the central portico of the “ Temple fresco ” is
muchhigherthanthosefound in the actual remains,
Mr. Fyfe assumes that the capital shown was also
exaggerated in size. The relative proportion of
the upper diameter to the column including capital
and base is about 6J diameters, and the diminu¬
tion of the lower diameter about one 6th of the
upper. The intercolumniation of the eastern
peristyle works out as 2*22 of the upper diameter,
and 2‘6 7 of the lower diameter of the shaft, the base
we have stated is always in stone and varies from
3J- in. to in. in height (those at Tiryns are
barely ij in.). The mouldings of the capital were,
according to Mr. Fyfe, probably in wood finished
with stucco.

We have already pointed out that the thickness
of the wall carried by the columns and capital in
the quadruple staircase court necessitated a beam
of sufficient width not only to support the wall,
but the beams across the peristyle which rested
direct on the abacus of the capital ; the lesser
diameter of the lower part of the shaft was stone
by the bases. The Mycenaean architect had already
ascertained that with the lesser diameter at the
bottom the shaft was quite equal to the support
of the superstructure and by so employing it, he

The Palace at Knossos , Crete.

\,PROC£SS/Ort

CO&U&OR.

f/flSv*?
footer 0ufer

(Vest Coub_T_

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(From R. I. B. A. Journal.)

FIG. 9.— RESTORATIONS (PARTLY CONJECTURED) BY MR. FYFE.

( From “ Annual,” British School at Athens.)

FIG. 10. — PLAQUES OF PORCELAIN MOSAIC WITH REPRESENTATIONS OF HOUSES AND TOWERS,

Proposed Legal Registration of Architects. 97

obtained a wider intercolumniation at the bottom,
requisite for free passage between the columns
with their stone bases and more light from the
courts. In fact he adopted the same principle as
that which is found in the legs of chairs, where the
greater dimension of the upper portion is necessary
for the framing into the seat of the chair, and the
smaller diameter at the bottom for less interference
with those who are moving about in the room.

In Mr. Fyfe’s drawing, Fig. 9, is shown an
elevation of the gypsum blocks, which formed the
substructure of the walls of the principal floor of the
western palace, and above them, a restoration of
the lower portion of the walls of the latter. This
restoration is based on a representation of the
ordinary houses, Fig. 10, of the ancient town of
Knossos on a series of plaques, which would seem
to have decorated a wooden chest similar to that
of Cypselus, in the Temple of Hera at Olympia
described by Pausanias. The houses are repre¬
sented as having two or three storeys, viz., a
ground floor with entrance doorway, a first floor
with windows framed in timber and having each
a mullion and transom, and a second floor with
square windows only. Some of the houses sug¬
gest a stone construction with regular courses of
masonry, others have a range of circular disks at
the floor level, and it is these latter that Mr.
Fyfe has reproduced in his restoration, the disks
representing the ends of the circular logs which
carried the floor and were carried through the
walls to bind together the outer and inner framing

of timber. In order to preserve the timber and
the core of the wail (which was in rubble masonry
with clay mortar) Mr. Fyfe assumes that the
outer and inner surfaces of the walls were covered
with stucco ; on the inside of the rooms they
painted the fresco decorations of which many
remains have been found. On the outside they
indicated by a series of painted disks the ends
of the round logs. This system of decoration
based on a constructive feature was carried farther
to the south propylaea, where a frieze of sculp¬
tured rosettes ran round the portico. Although
it has long been recognised that beams of timber
were, in Mycenean structures, laid horizontally on
the top of walls to carry the beams of the roof,
and elsewhere to tie the walls together, the com¬
plete framing of timber which Mr. Fyfe has shown
goes beyond what has been hitherto surmised in
buildings erected in crude brick, or in rubble
masonry and clay mortar. When one takes into
consideration the immense amount of timber
which formed an integral part of the construction
in the framing of the walls and floors of the palace
at Knossos, and in the ceilings and roofs, the
great fire (which is supposed by Mr. Hogarth to
have taken place about the year 1000 B.c.) must have
wrecked completely the whole palace, and as we
have already suggested, accounts for the preser¬
vation to our day of what has proved to be the
most remarkable archaeological discovery ever
made.

K. Phene Spiers.

The

Proposed Legal Registration of Architects

Very few people would be found to deny
that the good of architecture is more important
than the good of architects, or that in discussing
any attempt to regulate what is called the practice
of architecture the effect of such regulation on the
art itself deserves the chief consideration. Though
history shows it to have been sometimes futile, an
attempt forcibly to put an art into leading strings
would seem to be obviously dangerous if not
a direct courting of disaster. To test an artist by
standards set up by his seniors and predecessors
before allowing him — not to gain prizes or honours
— but to practice his art at all, appears to be the
surest way to check development or hasten the
hour of decadence.

In the case of architecture as it is at present
situated and produced in this country, there is, it
is true, another way of looking at the question
which has led to a proposal being made, and

persisted in for sixteen years, to do this dangerous
thing. Working for a community for the most
part devoid of the artistic sense and without
knowledge or discrimination in his particular art —
which, moreover, values him less for the sake of
that art than as a manager of its building affairs — -
the English architect is exposed not only to the
competition of other experts in building, who are
often employed where he thinks he has the better
claim, but also to that of a host of charlatans who
usurp his title, filch his commissions and bring
discredit on his craft. Surely, it is argued, under
such conditions the interests of all, architecture,
architect and employer alike, demand that no one
should be allowed to call himself an architect or
gain employment as one until his competence has
been tested and approved.

In reply to this it may be pointed out in the
first place that, notwithstanding the large amount

9 8 Some Lombard Street Signs.

of bad work which is still done, and the eccentricity
exhibited, English architecture has in the opinion
of most competent observers made immense strides
in recent years under the existing system ; and,
moreover, that it owes its happiest developments
entirely to its freedom from dictation or restraint.
That most fresh developments, the good with the
bad, would be checked and probably crushed,
under any system which rigidly required the
approval of a man’s art by his seniors must be
patent to any observer among architects, for he
cannot have failed to notice how each development
in turn is objected to, and honestly believed to be
wrong or retrograde by most of those who would
be called upon to apply the tests. So far as the
art of architecture is concerned then, it would
seem, to say the least, safer to leave “ protection ”
alone, and to trust for further improvement to
a more systematic training of professional archi¬
tects in the principles of design. But supporters
of the principle of making architecture a close
profession in this country are, as I understand
them, prepared to meet such views as are here
expressed by omitting from among the examination
tests any applied to the candidate’s powers of
design, that is, to the one thing which distinguishes
him from other building experts. This is surely
not onlv a grotesque proposal in principle, but one
which, if accepted, removes the only ground on
which architects could ask for the protection of
their title, or claim that registration would safe¬
guard the public against bad architecture. And
bad architecture is really the only thing against
which the registration of architects could in any

case protect them. If any such measure were
designed to give the public protection against fire,
accident, disease or other risks arising from bad
building, it would have to include many others be¬
sides architects, and enact that all building should
be superintended by a registered person. Besides,
in all places where such protection is wanted it is
at present given in a more effective way by building
acts, sanitary acts and by-laws regulating in detail
all important points of construction, and Par¬
liament is much more likely to extend than to
change that system. As regards what is called
“ unprofessional conduct,” such conduct is always
difficult to deal with, and among architects, as
among men of other professions, most of the
guilty are of necessity left to find their punishment,
if at all, in loss of reputation and employment.
But one thing is clear, namely, that a registration
law could only deal with cases as gross as those
which lead to a solicitor being struck off the
rolls, cases which are rare and alreadv, as a rule,
ruin the guilty person professionally.

There is a subordinate consideration which
appears to me absolutely conclusive against the
introduction of any system of government regis¬
tration for architects at present. It is that it
would mean in effect (since all existing practising
architects must be put on the register) registering
and stamping with official approval the present
standard of knowledge and efficiency in the lowest
ranks, a standard which, though rising, is still
ridiculously low. Even if registration were de¬
sirable it would have of necessity to wait until
the ground had been prepared by education.

Frank Baggallay.

Some Lombard Street Signs.

Drawings by Harold Falkner.

iNgivingthe following explanatory notescon-
cerning the fifteen signs we illustrate, due acknow¬
ledgment should be made to Mr. F. G. Hilton Price,
from whose work on the subject ° numerous ex¬
tracts have, with his permission, been made. The
project among the big banking and other firms to
celebrate the King’s Coronation by reviving the old
signs which had in by-gone days distinguished the
houses in Lombard Street was a happy one, and
aroused considerable interest and no little criti¬
cism. In 1886 Mr. Price had discovered records of
one hundred and nine signs, and since then enquiry
has revealed the existence of other fifty-nine, or
more than twice as many signs as there are houses

* “ The Signs of Old Lombard Street,” by F. G. Hilton Price,
F.S.A. New Edition, 1902. Leadenhall Press, Limited.

in the street. This may perhaps be accounted
for by the fact that the house sometimes had a
different sign from the shop, as some of the latter
were merely booths or lean-to sheds against the
houses or churches. As regards the signs them¬
selves their origin is obscure and in but few cases
does it appear that they derived from either the
proprietors’ names or callings. The localization
of the various signs has been a matter of difficulty
owing principally to changes in the buildings them¬
selves. After the Great Fire ninety-seven houses
were erected in Lombard Street. In Horwood’s
plan, 1799, there were seventy-four houses; there
are now only sixty-six, and the tendency has been
for many years to erect one large house upon the
sites of two or more of the old ones. In some

Some Lombard Street Signs .

FIG. I. — LOMBARD STREET IN 1 799, FROM HORWOOD’S PLAN.

cases signs have moved with their owners; in more
numerous instances the houses have been rechris¬
tened to suit a new tenant ; but in general it may
be said that the signs came down with the houses,
irrespective of the inhabitants and their callings.
They are therefore as appropriate to the present
banking firms as they were to the original owners.
Banking, of course, dates back only to the Com¬
monwealth, but the operations of the old gold and
silver smiths, who also carried on an extensive
pawnbroking business, are so nearly allied to the
banking business of to-day that we can say Lom¬
bard Street has been the home of the bankers
since the earliest times.

The Phoenix (Fig. 3) was the sign put up by
The Phoenix Assurance Co. at No. 19. The
Phoenix, as a sign, belongs properly to No. 10,
a house not now in existence, and the signs which
have descended to this firm whose present pre¬
mises cover the sites of Nos. 18, 19 and 20, Lom¬

bard Street, are “The Hare” (No. 18), “The
Two Bells” (No. 19), and “The Star” (No. 20).
It will be generally conceded, however, that the
sign of “ The Phoenix ” is much more appropriate
than any one of the other three named. The sign
was one of the most successful of those put up for
the Coronation festivities, and by an ingenious
arrangement the illumination at night was effected
by the playing of real flames on the body of the
bird, an illustration of the legend that attracted
considerable attention.

The A rtichoke, No. 24, Lombard Street (Fig. 4).—
This, the first of the Artichoke signs in Lombard
Street, was put up by Messrs. Alexanders and Co.,
Limited, and the name of the house is confirmed
by old deeds in their possession. The second
sign of the Artichoke belongs to No. 28, only four
doors away. In The Post Boy for August 5, 1710,
the Old Boys of Bishop’s Stortford School were
requested to meet at Mr. Dillingham’s, a woollen

FIG. 2 — LOMBARD STREET IN 1899.

IOO

Some Lombard Street Signs.

FIG 3. — ‘‘THE PH GEN IX. ”

1’HE PHOENIX ASSURANCE CO.

FIG. 5. — “THE ARTICHOKE.”

THE ROYAL INSURANCE CO.

MESSRS. ALEXANDERS AND CO., LTD.

draper’s at the “ Artichoke ” in Lombard Street,
but whether this was No. 24 or No. 28 is not known.
In 1769 Messrs. William Fuller and Son, Bankers,
started here; the firm changed in style to Whit¬
more, Wells and Co., and failed in 1841. Messrs.
Cunliffes were here in 1844. When the premises
were rebuilt some years ago a carved panel or
sign over the door representing a fox was pre-

Some Lombard Street Signs

10 i

FIG. 7. — “THE BLACK MOOR’S HEAD.”

MESSRS. A. BUFFER AND SONS.

served by Messrs. Alexanders and built
into a partition in the vestibule of the new
building. It is not known what history
attaches to this sign.

The second sign of The Artichoke (Fig. 5)
was that hung out by the Royal Insur¬
ance Co., at No. 28. The house was
formerly called “ The Artichoke,” and
from 1736 to 1808 was occupied by Wal¬
pole and Co., which firm came to an
end in the latter year. The Royal In¬
surance Co. also own No. 27, Lombard
Street. The sign for this number was
“The Queen’s Head and Sun.” And this
was also reproduced in connection with
the Coronation decorations. Our illus¬
tration (Fig. 6) shows “The Sun,” “The
Queen’s Head ” being on the reverse side
of the sign. At No. 27 William Yeat, a
bookseller, lived in 1731, Messrs. Walpole
and Co., came here from 'Clement’s Lane
in 1770.

The sign of jthe Black Moor's Head (Fig. 7) formerly
belonged to No. 39, Lombard Street, which was the
first house on the west side of White Hart Court, and
was known before the Fire by the sign of the “ Angel
and Golden Cross;” after the Great Fire two houses
were built upon the site. The second house is No. 40.
There is reason to suppose that these houses let as one
house, and after the Great Fire were known by the sign
of the “ Black Moor’s Head,” as there is an entry in
the books of the Fishmongers’ Company that in 1696
Sir John Sweetaple asked for a renewal of his lease for
a term of twenty-two years; in 1718 the Company
granted another lease to W. Sherwell until 1749.
Messrs. A. Rtiffer and Sons are the present occupants
of Nos. 39 and 40.

The sign of The Vine (Fig. 8) is connected with
No. 77, a house formerly known as “ The Vine ” and
now the branch office of Parr’s Bank, Limited. In
1683 Sir Robert Vyner advertised in the London Gazette
a meeting of creditors here. The original sign, rendered
by a bunch of grapes, is still extant. After Vyner the
house is said to have passed through the hands of
Charles Shales (1715), Thomas Bowdler (1736), Thomas
Minors, and then Minors and Boldero (1754), Boldero,
Adey and Co. (1787), Vere, Lucadon and Co. bankers
(1787). The title of the firm afterwards changed to
Sapte and Co., then to Fuller, Banbury and Co., and

FIG. 8. — “THE VINE.” PARR’S BANK, LIMITED.

“THE CARDINAL’S CAP Or HATT.” MESSRS. SEARLE AND CO-

[02 Some Lombard

the last-named are now incorporated with Parr’s
Bank.

The Cardinal's Cap or Cardinal's Halt Tavern
(see Fig. 8), was a famous tavern before the Great
Fire of London, and close beside it was an alley
leading to Cornhill known as the Cardinal Cap
Alley, and so marked in R. Horwood's plan of
Lombard Street, 1799. The alley existed under
this name until the beginning of the nineteenth
century, and is at present in existence in the
form of a passage, although the name is lost.
Stow records the gift of the tavern, the alley,
and another house adjoining to the Brotherhood
of Our Lady, in St. Mary Woolnots, by Simon
Eyre, a draper and Lord Mayor of London,
1445-6. Pepys records a visit to the house in
1660. In 16S3 the name of the tavern was
changed to “ The Cock.” Partly on the site of
this house stand Nos. 78 and 79, Lombard
Street, in the occupation of Messrs. Searle and
Co., jewellers, who erected the above sign for the
Coronation. The passage spoken of above runs
between these two houses.

The Cape Lion (the top sign in Fig. 9) was adopted
by the De Beers Consolidated Mines, Limited, at
No. 62, their chief office being situated at Kimber¬
ley, S.A. Since the Coronation this firm has
moved its London offices to St. Swithin’s Lane.

The Cat-a-Fiddling (Fig. 9) was the sign
adopted by the Commercial Bank of Scotland,

BARCLAY AND CO. LTD.

Street Signs.

FIG. 9.— “THE CAPE LION.”

THE DE BEERS CONSOLIDATED MINES LID.

“THE CAT-A-FIDDLING.”

THE COMMERCIAL BANK OF SCOTLAND LTD.

Limited, at No. 62, Lombard Street. The proper
sign for No. 62 is “ The Black Horse,” but Lloyds
Banking Co., the former occupants, moved this
sign to their new premises at No. 73, this being
the third time this sign has been moved. The
present tenants of No. 62 therefore adopted the
sign of the “ Cat-a-Fiddling,” which really be¬
longs to No. 63. The name is unusual, the general
term being the “ Cat and Fiddle.” In 1672 it
was the sign of Anthony Dansie, a haberdasher,
and in the will of his widow, who died in 1717,
she refers to this house as the “ Cat-a-Fiddling.”

The Black Spread Eagle (Fig. 10) adopted by
Messrs. Barclay and Co., Ltd., at No. 54, Lom¬
bard Street, really belonged to No. 56 ; but the
premises now numbered 54, covers the sites of
houses formerly numbered 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, and
56, and the firm can therefore sport sundry signs.
No. 53 is the original site of the “ Black Horse,”
1677, kept by Stokes, a goldsmith and friend of
Pepys. No. 5^, in 1728 was called “The Bible,” and
was occupied by George Braithwaite, a goldsmith.
No. 55 was in all probability called the “Three

103

Some Lombard Street Signs.

FIG. II. — “THE RAM.”

MESSRS. GILLETT BROS. AND CO.

Kings.” The earliest mention of The Black Spread
Eagle sign is in 1676, when James Tayler, a gold¬
smith, advertised for a missing apprentice from
this house. In 1736 Mr. James Barclay joined
Mr. Freame in partnership here, and the firm,
with sundry alterations in the style, comes down
to the present occupants.

fig. 12. — “the king’s head.”

THE CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE.

The Ram (Fig. n), the sign put up by Messrs.
Gillett Bros, and Co., at 58, Lombard Street, was
really the sign connected with No. 57. Before
the Great Fire the George Inn stood on the site
of No. 57 ; afterwards two houses were erected
on the west side of George Yard, described as Sir
Jeremy Snow’s house, known to be No. 58, and
Ward’s house, No. 57. The little “ London Direc¬
tory ” of 1677 shows that Robert Ward and John
Towneley kept The Ram. In 1754 Mr. Henton
Brown, a banker, occupied No. 57, and during his
tenancy Nos. 57 and 58 were knocked into one.

The King's Head and Phoenix was the sign of
No. 60. The little “ London Directory ” of 1677
gives the title as “ The King’s Head.” The sign
of last year (Fig. 12) was put up by the Canadian
Bank of Commerce, the present occupants.

FIG. 13. — “THE ANCHOR.”

MESSRS. GLYN, MILLS, CURRIE AND CO.

The Anchor (Fig. 13) was the sign put up by
Messrs. Glyn, Mills, Currie, and Co. at No. 67,
Lombard Street. Their present premises occupy
the sites of what were formerly Nos. 63, 64, 65,
66, and 67. No. 64, once occupied by Messrs.
Overend and Co., was before the Great Fire
known in 1666 by the sign of “The Bell,” and in
1670 was called “ The Black Bull ” previous to
being known as “The Blue Anchor” in 16 77.
No. 65, on the site of the Salutation Tavern,
erected just after the Great Fire, has no history
of a sign, but No. 66 was the King’s Arms, and
had, of course, the Royal arms as its sign. No. 67
is supposed to occupy the sign of the “Anchor,”
but Mr. Hilton Price also ascribes the sign of
“ The White Lion,” occupied by Sir Martin
Bowes, 1566, to this house. The present firm
has therefore the records of a “ Blew Anchor ”

io4

Some Lombard Street Signs.

FIG. 14. — “the grasshopper.’1

martin’s bank, ltd.

and “The Anchor” for two of the houses whose
sites are covered by the present building.

The Grasshopper, at No. 68, Lombard Street
(Fig. 14), is one of the most historical signs in
the street. It is stated that at this house
Matthew Shore, a goldsmith, said to have been
the husband of the beautiful and notorious Jane
Shore, carried on his trade in 1461, but the sign
of “The Grasshopper” apparently originated
with Sir Thomas Gresham, the famous merchant,
who adopted the grasshopper as his crest, and
called the house “ The Grasshopper ” during his
occupancy of the premises about 1560. There is
a gap after Gresham in the history of the house,
but in 1677 Duncombe and Kent, goldsmiths,
were there. This Duncombe, referred to by
Evelyn in his diary as “one, Duncombe, a mean
goldsmith,” became a great man, and as Aider-
man Sir Charles Duncombe bought an estate at
Helmsley in Yorkshire, and was an ancestor of
the present Earl of Feversham. In 1688 Richard
Smith occupied the premises; in 1700 Andrew
Stone was there ; in 1703 Stone and Martin, since
which date business at this sign has always been
conducted by the Martins, the present style of the
firm being Martin’s Bank, Limited.

1 he Seven Stars (big. 15), the sign ot Messrs,
Guinness, Mahon, and Co., of 81, Lombard Street,
is the original sign of this house, and was occu¬
pied 1660-1698 by Thomas Seymour, a goldsmith.
1 he firm believes the house to have been origin¬
ally erected by an instrument maker of the name
of Best, whose house was known as “ The Seven
Stars,” and that the name originated from his
sign consisting of a shield with seven stars. In
1705 it was known as “ The Halbert and Hart,”
and was occupied by Thomas Tax, instrument
maker. Before this there is record of it being
called “ The Saw.”

The Black Boy (Fig. 16) is the sign put up by
The Clydesdale Bank, Limited, of No. 30, Lombard
Street. The sign really belongs to No. 29; but
this house is non-existent, the site apparently

FIG. 15. — “the seven stars.”

MESSRS. GUINNESS, MAHON AND CO.

being incorporated with that of No. 30. In 1677
Peter Percefull and Stephen Evans kept running
cashes here. In 1697 Sir Stephen Evance was
appointed Jeweller to the King. The firm became
in 1702 Evans and Hales, and they stopped pay¬
ment in 1721. Messrs. Cunliffe, Brooks and Co.
were here from 1836 to 1843, when they moved
next door. The sign of No. 30 was “ The Bellows
and Ball.”

Of the other signs erected for the Coronation
decorations mention may be made of “The
Anchor and Crown,” the sign of the London and
County Banking Co., Ltd., at No. 21. In 1746
it was occupied by Mrs. Derrell, and in 1766 by
John Henry Vere, a goldsmith. Messrs. Smith,
Wright, and Gray, Bankers, were the next occu¬
piers ; in 1793 they amalgamated with Messrs.

Old W estminster and the “ Improvement ” Scheme. 105

THE CLYDESDALE BANK, LTD.

FROM A DRAWING BY J. STARKIE GARDNFR.

Esdailes and Co., who stopped payment in
January 1837. The London and County Banking
Co. have occupied the premises since 1846. The
present building covers the sites also of Nos. 20,
21, 22, and 23. No. 22 was in 1693 known by
the sign of “ The Blue Perriwig,” and No. 23 was
in 1758 a draper’s shop called “ The Fleece.”
The sign of No. 20 was originally “The White
Swanne,” but in 1663 it was called “ The Star,”
a sign that was also erected for the Coronation.
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corpora¬
tion erected the sign of “ Adam and Eve ” at
No. 31, and the English, Scottish, and Australian
Bank Ltd. the sign of “The Unicorn and Ring”
at No. 38.

Note. — In addition to Mr. Hilton Price our acknowledge¬
ments are also due to Mr. H. D. Anderson, Hon. Sec. to the
Decoration Committee, Mr. Starkie Gardner, and the various
firms who have kindly assisted in the preparation of this article.

The Demolition of Old Westminster and
the “ Improvement” Scheme.

Improvement, like restoration, has come
to be a word of dire significance to all artists, to
all who watch with trained eyes or educated
sympathies, the swift and steady dwindling of our
heritage of beauty. To think of the havoc
wrought during the last seventy years under these
names, is to justify the abhorrence they arouse,
But in common fairness, an Improvement Scheme
should be carefully examined before condemna¬
tion, to see what of real improvement it may
contain, as well as the destruction it may
threaten, to weigh the probable gain against the
positive loss. In the scheme under review, two
great public bodies are concerned — the London
County Council, as direct and responsible pro¬
genitors, invested with Parliamentary powers, and
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as abettors and
as national trustees for a large proportion of the
involved area. But the London County Council
scheme is not in any way responsible for the
demolition, actual and threatened, of the delight¬
ful old quarter lying immediately to the south¬
ward of Westminster Abbey, of which the Eccle¬
siastical Commissioners are the ground landlords.
The illustrations of this article are photographs
taken in August last, and have been selected to
show what is left of this still unique and most
interesting neighbourhood.

Great College Street follows the course of the
old mill stream or creek which formed the southern
boundary of the Abbey precincts. The ancient
stone wall, probably of the fourteenth century,

and known as St. Dunstan’s Wall, still forms one
side of the street, dividing it from the Abbey
garden, and appears on the left-hand side of our
view. Up to the summer of 1902 this was a street
of extraordinary charm and interest, possessing
throughout its length not more than four or five
modern buildings. The bulk of its houses are of
the eighteenth century, and full of charming
detail internally and externally. Old West¬
minsters will remember with affectionate regret,
Sutcliffe’s pretty little old bow-windowed tuck-
shop, which stood till a few weeks ago at the
western end of the street. Now, unfortunately,
fully two-thirds of the old houses have been
pulled down, and the delightful winding cobble-
paved street terribly shorn of its beauty. Under
the auspices of the Commissioners, a most unde¬
sirable block of railway offices is rising on one
of the cleared sites, and the Dean and Chapter
have actually let one of the canonries in the
garden to the railway company. Cowley Street
lies behind and nearly parallel to Great College
Street, with which it is connected by Barton
Street. Both these streets were a few years ago
absolutely of the eighteenth century, and still
retain the greater part of their early Georgian
character. A panel near their corner gives the
date of 1722-3, and the whole of the old houses
owe their origin to about that period. The view
of an entrance hall in Cowley Street shows a
typical instance of the panelling and fine joinery
of this triad of charming streets, these staid,

VOL. xiv. — 1

o6 Old Westminster and the “ Improvement ” Scheme.

FIG I. — GREAT COLLEGE STREET, SHOWING DEMOLITION AT
THE EAST END.

orderly, delightful little rows, akin in charm and
character to Cheyne Row at Chelsea, Church
Row at Hampstead, and the Pallants at Chiches¬
ter. Surely worth preserving, if possible, are these
quiet old streets, intensely appreciated by those
who live in them, intensely appropriate in their
decent quietude, to their position under the
shadow of the great Abbey. They are still en¬
joying a hale old age, may they not die a natural
death ?

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners’ defence for
this ruthless action in destroying one of the
most picturesque and interesting quarters in all
London, is that the value of the ground has
risen to a point at which it is worth more than
the buildings upon it, and that they are bound to
administer a public trust to the best financial
advantage. Such an argument may be good for
a commercial company, but ill-beseems a great
and trusted national department. If carried to
its logical conclusion, Westminster Abbey itself
should shortly disappear in favour of residential
flats or a new railway station. Are there no
other assets than pounds, shillings, and pence, no
considerations but those of financial profit ? If
there are not, cannot the Commissioners turn
their financial attention to other portions of the
vast property entrusted to them, some of which
is in need of actual improvement, and leave to
Westminster and to London this little oasis of
old-world beauty.

To say that most of the threatened houses are
decrepit and ill-cared for is untrue.

The condition of the houses is indeed ex¬
tremely creditable to the tenants of an estate that
throws the whole burden of repairs of every sort
upon its lessees, declining to spend one penny

upon any improvements. If, how¬
ever, the stern financial necessities
of the case absolutely require de¬
molition, it is not too much to
ask that there should be some
educated control, some sound
architectural selection and super¬
vision of the new buildings that
are to supersede the old. But the
commonplace vulgarity and un¬
suitability of the new buildings in
Little College, Barton, and Cowley
Streets will convince the most
casual observer that such restric¬
tive influences are discreditably
absent.

The Commissioners cannot
escape the stigma of vulgarising a
beautiful neighbourhood.

Many of your readers may re¬
member that this area was
threatened in 1898 by a private syndicate who
sought to push through Parliament a Bill
granting them powers of compulsory purchase,
with a view to the speculative creation of an
“Attractive Residential Quarter.” A most strenu¬
ous fight — begun, and for the chief part con¬
tinued, by a few energetic residents — raged for
months in the Press and magazines ; the Dean
and Chapter, the Parish vestry, and finally the

Photo : H. Irving.

Photo . H. Irving

FIG. 2. — COWLEY SI REI T, LOOKING WESTWARD.

Old Westminster and the “ Improvement" Scheme. 107

FIG. 3. — NORTH STREET AND ST. JOHN’S CHURCH.

Ecclesiastical Commissioners joined in opposing
the Bill.

Sympathetically championed in Parliament by
Mr. Burdett Courts and Mr. H. Robertson, and
supported by the London County Council, the
opposition was brilliantly successful, and the Bill
was rejected on the second reading by four votes
to one.

The residents feel bitterly that, having borne
the brunt of that fight to secure to the Ecclesias¬
tical Commissioners their control of the neigh¬
bourhood, having defeated the sinister projects
of the syndicate, their interests are now entirely
ignored by the former body, whose high-handed
evictions and demolitions show that “ New Pres¬
byter is but old Priest writ large.” One of the
most decisive arguments used against the syndi¬
cate's Bill was that it sought to appropriate, as a
building site, the ground lying along the river be¬
tween the Victoria Tower Garden and Lambeth
Bridge, and commanding the beautiful cross-river
view of Lambeth. Palace and Church. It was wisely
contended that this site must be opened out and
the Victoria Tower Garden continued to Lambeth
Bridge, without let or hindrance, free and open in
perpetuity as a public garden. This point has
been gained, and the extension of the Victoria
Tower Garden, with the formation of a wide road
behind it, is embodied in the Act obtained in igoo
by the London County Council. But while re¬
joicing in this fact, it is permissible to criticise the
plan of this extension and of the general altera¬
tions accompanying it. I can only regret, for the
sake of your readers who may not be familiar
with that plan, that it is not possible to reproduce
it here. Its most salient feature is the widening
of Abingdon and Millbank Streets to form a
new street, seventy feet wide, leading from Palace

Yard to Lambeth Bridge, and the
plan indicates the widening of the
southern approach to Palace Yard
by splaying off, in a very ungainly
fashion, the northern end of the
terrace of interesting Georgian
houses known as Abingdon Street.
This means the demolition of the
most characteristic and dignified
house in the row — No. 32 — of finely
proportioned design, with a stone
base, a very cleverly planned double
stairway leading to its front door,
a handsome round gable-pediment,
and retaining its heavy-barred old
wooden sashes. This house seems
to need only cleaning, painting,
photo: h. ining. and ordinary repairs, to stand in
quiet dignity for many years. The
splaying off of this corner
seems to portend the demolition of the whole of
Abingdon Street, all, or nearly all, the houses of
which, though now mostly grubby and unpainted,
and occupied by offices, are full of architectural
interest and merit. They contain admirable
ceilings, cornices, doors, and chimney-pieces. It
seems a great pity that they should go. The
plan, however, shows the road line as offering no
correspondence with the existing frontage, so that
the intention is obvious. This is a magnificent

Photo : H. Irving

FIG. 4. — AN ENTRANCE HALL IN COWLEY STREET.

i o8 Old Westminster and the “ Improvement ” Scheme.

site, whose east front is opposite the House of
Lords for about two-fifths, and opposite the
Victoria Tower Garden, the river, and Lambeth
Palace for the other three-fifths, while its back or
west side commands the delightful prospect of
the Abbey Gardens, the Abbey, and Westminster
School. If it is to be cleared, it should be
secured for a public building. That the indiffer¬
ence of London, of the nation, will be sufficient to
surrender such a site to the unknown projects of
speculative purchasers, our experience has taught
us to think possible, but there is the hopeful
chance that its contiguity to the Houses of
Parliament may better direct its fate.

The general trend of the new street towards
Lambeth Bridge seems to be too abruptly south¬
eastward, i.e. towards the river, with the result
of reducing the extended garden to a wedge only
about 70 feet wide at its thinner end next the
bridge, and of cutting obliquely a large slice off
the existing Victoria Tower Garden. A feature of
this arrangement is the avoidance of diminution
of the block immediately southward of Abingdon
Street, and bounded by Great College and Wood
Streets to the north and south, and Little College
Street to the west. This block is the destined site
of the new offices of the Ecclesiastical Corcimis-
sioners, a building which the Daily Chronicle
informs us is to be “ in the Renaissance Style,”
whatever phase of the reborn manner that may
portend ; we trust it may be kept in harmony
of scale and treatment with its surroundings.
For it is obvious that, if the new buildings along
the new street are kept too high, the architec¬
tural gain of its increased width will be seriously
diminished.

The widening, or to speak correctly, the aboli¬
tion of Millbank Street, necessarily involves the
destruction of several old houses; notably No. 1,
a dignified building of the Adam’s type, and a
house with a fine brown brick front opposite the
end of Church Street. It is, however, so obvious
that Millbank Street is quite inadequate for even
its present traffic, and so tortuous, neglected, and
squalid, that it would be unwise, in spite of its
extreme picturesqueness, to strive for its retention.

The plan as it affects Smith’s Square, and that
singular and most interesting masterpiece of
Archer’s, the church of St. John the Evangelist,
needs careful consideration. It is apparently
proposed, without any material enlargement of
the Square, to acquire, and, presumably, to pull
down almost all the buildings that enclose it ; in
fact, all the old buildings with the exception of the
Rectory of St. John, in the south-west corner.
On the north side of the Square are seven houses
of the early part of the eighteenth century, most
of them in excellent order, and all well propor¬

tioned, having admirable carved door porticos,
and fine wrought-iron railings in front.

The London County Council scheme signifies
the demolition of eight interesting old houses, of
several uninteresting and poorish ones, and, it is
to be hoped, of three large and excessively ugly
modern buildings, a block of flats, “ model ”
workmen’s dwellings, and gas meter works. Ex¬
perience prompts one to fear that, if the four sides
of the Square are demolished, while its area is not
sensibly enlarged, the buildings likely to be erected
will, to make the most paying use of their sites,
be so high as seriously to damage the church by
enclosing it in a well of tall houses.

1 he Square has, at present, two main avenues
of approach in Church Street and North Street,
running respectively eastward and northward from
the centres of the corresponding sides. There are
other minor streets and lanes which lead into the
Square. It is now proposed to form two other
main avenues, a western street running into Tuf-
ton Street, and a southern street running into
Horseferry Road. This is an obvious and excel¬
lent treatment of cardinal axes. But the plan
shows widely, and convexly, rounded corners at
the junction of streets with square ; an ugly and
inconvenient feature, and one most difficult of
architectural treatment. However, what chiefly
causes concern, and indeed indignant dismay, is
the very obvious intention, by widening it quite
unnecessarily, to destroy North Street.

This is practically, as our illustration will show,
another untouched legacy of the eighteenth cen¬
tury, full of unpretentious, well-proportioned old
houses, mostly panelled internally, and nearly all
having admirable wrought-iron railings. This
street forms a direct and perfectly convenient
avenue of approach to the main entrance of the
church, and affords a unique and charming vista,
terminated by its columned portico and pedi¬
ments. Fully recognising all that is excellent
and in the nature of real improvement in the
scheme of the London County Council, it is surely
not too much to demand that that body, invested
with great powers and trusted with great financial
resources, should show itself worthy of a magnifi¬
cent opportunity; and, while sparing as far as
possible all that is capable of preservation in this
ancient quarter, should exercise such careful con¬
trol of new structures that we may not have fresh
instances of the unskilled alignments, neglect of
perspectives, and medleys of incongruous fa9ades
which disgrace the greater portion of this enor¬
mous city.

What isneededis asaneanddeliberatecivicideal;
the relevance and obedience to a dominant idea
that should stamp the control of a great central
authority. Edward Prioleau Warren.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVI EVV, OCTOBER,
I903, VOLUME XIV.
NO. S3.

Photo : E. Dochree.

ALL SAINTS CONVENT, COLNEY CHAPEL, ST. ALBANS.
DETAIL OF THE TOWER. LEONARD STOKES, ARCHITECT.

(See page 121.)

The Hospital of St. Cross.

Winchester, whose history is so closely
associated with the earliest annals of England,
abounds in monuments of antiquity. Its Cathe¬
dral, which presents an almost continuous record
of the development of Mediaeval architecture, both
in its fabric and in its many chauntries. the relics
of antiquity which abound in the Close, Wolvesey,
the Town Hall, the gateways, the college buildings
of Wykeham’s foundation, the Market Cross, its
ancient churches, and the character of its main
street, which, in spite of modern incongruities,
retains a characteristic flavour of an earlier and
more picturesque era — all afford so much interest
to the antiquarian and to the ordinary visitor, that,
but for strong attraction elsewhere, he might be
content to confine his study to the precincts of the
city and its immediate neighbourhood. Neverthe¬
less, there are few who consider a visit to Win¬
chester complete unless it includes an excursion
to St. Cross, which lies to the south, a mile or so
beyond the walls of the city. The traveller by
rail, who has caught a momentary and inadequate
glimpse of the Cathedral, gains, a few minutes
later, a much more complete view of the cruciform
church, itself almost a cathedral in miniature,
with its dignified and unpretentious attendant

buildings, standing in the water-meadows near the
River Itchen. He can scarcely fail to find his
curiosity aroused as to its history and purpose ;
or, if it is seen from any one of the hills around
Winchester, it arrests attention for its dignity and
comparative isolation, standing as an outwork of
the Cathedral city, projecting an ecclesiastical
influence into its remoter suburbs.

It is best to approach it by the path which leads
across the water-meadows. You pass from the
Close to the south gate, above which stands a tiny
church still in use : you turn to the left, noting by
the way the tablet which marks the house where
Jane Austen died ; pass the north side of Wyke¬
ham’s College buildings, which here present a
gaunt and rather forbidding aspect (Wykeham
rightly preserved the architectural amenities of his
college for its alumni), and the Warden's house.
You turn to the right and skirt a “carrier” or
stream diverted from the main river, in which,
with good fortune, you may catch a glimpse of a
lusty trout, and a field-path brings you in a ten
minutes’ walk to the outer gate of the Hospital,
which has for some time been in view. The quiet
walk is an appropriate prelude to the tranquillity
of the precincts. As Mr. Freeman writes, “ No

ST. CROSS FROM THE WATER-MEADS.

Photo : E. Dockree.

VOL. XIV.— K 2

I I 2

The Hospital of St. Cross.

one can pass its threshold without finding himself
landed, as it were, in another age. It seems a
place where no worldly thought, no pride, or pas¬
sion, or irreverence could enter ; a spot where, as
a modern writer has beautifully expressed it, a good
man, might he make his choice, might wish to
die.”

Undoubtedly the atmosphere of the precincts
suggests a calm unbroken through the centuries of
their existence ; nevertheless, the earlier history
of the foundation shows that “pride, passion, and
irreverence ” found their billet there, and that it
was, even in an unusual degree, the victim of
sacrilegious spoliation and wanton neglect.

The Hospital of St. Cross was founded by
Henry de Blois in 1136. There appears to be no
definite authority for the legend recorded by
Milner, who quotes Bishop Godwin as stating that
a monastery existed on the spot from the earliest
ages of Christianity until the Danish invasions,
when it was destroyed. This is, at any rate,
incompatible with another legend, apparently of
much later origin, which for its quaintness, and
the interesting conjectures which it starts, may
here be recorded.

There is apparently no doubt that the niche on
the south side of the entrance tower was occupied
by a figure of the Blessed Virgin ; that this figure
survived the iconoclasm of the reformers, until,
somewhat over a century ago, it fell, almost
crushing in its fall one of the brethren of the
Hospital. The head of the figure is preserved in
the north choir aisle.

This figure is said to have been saved from the
tender mercies of the iconoclasts by an invented
story that it represented a milkmaid with a pail
on her head.

There is, too, a legend that Henry de Blois,
wandering about the water-meads, was met by a
milkmaid, who pointed out to him the spot on
which he should build his hospital.

The questions which occur to us in this connec¬
tion are these : — (1) Was the identification of the
figure with the milkmaid suggested by an ante¬
cedent legend, or were both story and identifica¬
tion equally due to the ingenious invention of
those who wished to save the figure ? It must be
conceded that the milkmaid cannot be common to
both by mere coincidence ; also that this legend of
the foundation savours of an earlier date than the
Reformation. (2) Supposing that the milkmaid
legend was current before its employment for this
purpose, might not its original form have been
that the Blessed Virgin had appeared to de Blois
in the fashion of a milkmaid? This conjecture,
though I can find no authority for it, seems to me
to be extremely probable. Such stories were
abundantly current in the Middle Ages, especially

in the fourteenth century. If any weight be
given to my guess, I will further ask (3) whether
the legend being extant, and the statue suffering
such partial decay as to obscure certain features
(the prominencies of the crown would probably be
the first to perish), the identification of the
Blessed Virgin with the milkmaid may not have
been transferred in popular interpretation to the
figure? In that case its preservers would have
found it necessary merely to suppress before the
Commissioners its sacred aspect, and bring the
secular into prominence. We may thus save
their characters at the expense of their ingenuity,
attributing to them a mere suppressio veri in place
of a suggestio falsi.

If, then, it be permissible to build a considerable
structure upon a small foundation, I incline to
hold that the fourteenth century gave birth,
among countless other legends of Our Lady, to
this of the milkmaid, which would be treasured by
those interested in the Hospital, as it implied an
august and miraculous origin of its foundation ;
that her statue, conspicuously placed, served to
fortify the tradition of her connection with the
Hospital; that in the course of time, and through
process of decay, it came to represent the aspect
of her disguise, which disguise was ingeniously
utilised for its preservation.

So much for this story, the comparative irrele¬
vance of which can be justified only by the interest
of the problems which it suggests.

To return from the region of legend to actual
history : the purpose of de Blois’ foundation was
to support “thirteen poor men, feeble and so
reduced in strength that they can hardly or with
difficulty support themselves without another’s
aid,” and for them specific provision was made of
bed and board ; should any recover from his infir¬
mities, he was “ to be sent abroad with honour and
reverence, and another put in his place.” Further,
a hundred poor and indigent men were to have
their dinner daily, and other acts of kindness
were to be done to the poor, according to the
ability of the Hospital, which for these purposes
was endowed with various tithes and rents. In
1151 the new foundation was handed over to the
charge of Raymond, Master of the Knights
Hospitallers of Jerusalem.

Henry de Blois was Bishop of Winchester at
the date of this foundation. He was succeeded
by Richard Toclyve, who extended the benefac¬
tions of the Hospital to the feeding of another
hundred poor men, and increased the staff of the
Hospital, making provision for four priests,
thirteen secular clerks, and several choristers. It
is presumably to Toclyve that we must attribute
the choir school, said to have stood to the south
east of the church, of which no trace is now to be

The Hospital of St. Cross.

found, as well as the triple arch discussed later,
which formed the entrance from the choir resi¬
dence to the church through a cloister, pro¬
jected or built, of which also no remains are
discoverable. It was also through Bishop To-
clyve’s action that in 1185 the Knights Hospi¬
tallers, after many disputes and appeals to Rome,
gave up the management of the Hospital to the
present and future bishops of Winchester. In¬
deed, the increase of the benefactions and the
transference of the management, appear to have
been arranged pari passu, and as part of the same
compact.

It is doubtful whether the change of manage¬
ment was conducive to the prosperity of the
foundation. At any rate by the beginning of the
fourteenth century grave abuses were rife. Suc¬
cessive masters appear to have regarded their
position as an occasion for enriching themselves
by whatever assets remained over after the most
perfunctory and parsimonious fulfilment of the
terms of the trust, and repeated efforts were made
by successive bishops to remedy such misappro¬
priation. It would be impossible to relate fully
the history of these abuses and of the efforts made
to remedy them. One of the most conspicuous
of such malefactors was John Edingdon, nephew
to Edingdon, Wykeham’s predecessor in the See
of Winchester. John Edingdon had alienated
“the whole stock belonging to the hospital” and
left dilapidations to the amount of some three or
four hundred pounds. He had hurriedly made an

i 1 3

exchange with one William Stowell with a view
of covering his defalcations. His successors appear
to have been if possible more unscrupulous, and it
was not until 1382 that William of Wykeham,
after years of effort and litigation and repeated
appeals to Rome, succeeded in restoring order
and prosperity. The appointment of John Cam-
peden, a personal friend of Wykeham, to the
mastership marks the return to a more health}^
condition of finance as well as a considerable
expenditure upon the buildings.

Wykeham was succeeded in the bishopric of
Winchester by Cardinal Beaufort, who with the
consent of the then master, Thomas Forrest, and
the brethren, established within the precincts a
new foundation, termed “the Hospital or Alms¬
house of Noble Poverty,” which was to consist of
a warden, two priests, thirty-five brethren and
three sisters. The Cardinal’s deed is dated 1445,
and his almshouse is stated to have been on the
western side of the church. The gateway tower,
which contains, in a niche on the northern side,
an effigy of the Cardinal and his arms above the
doorway, must unquestionably be attributed to
Beaufort. What further buildings were due to
him is less clear. It is certain that his inten¬
tions were in some degree frustrated by the Wars
of the Roses and the triumph of the Yorkists,
and that the completion of his design fell to
Waynflete’s lot, who, however, owing to the
diminution of value in the endowments bestowed
on the hospital by Cardinal Beaufort, was com-

VIEW FROM THE NORTH-WEST.

Photo: E. Dockree.

[ [4

The Hospital of St. Cross.

pelled to reduce the number on the foundation to
one priest and two brethren.

During the episcopate of Bishop Fox, Robert
Sherburne, a Wykehamist both at Winchester
and Oxford, made considerable contributions to
the foundation, and is said to have erected the
eastern side of the quadrangle, that running from
the Porter’s Lodge to the Church.

In 1509 the Church of St. Faith, to the
north west of the hospital, which had fallen into
disrepair, was pulled down. The site is still
marked by the churchyard which remains. The
font and bell were transferred to St. Cross, to¬
gether with the screen which now divides the choir
from the north aisle, and probably other minor
features. Another church, that of St. James, had
also, at some date which I cannot fix, perished or
been destroyed, though apparently in this case at
least a chapel had been retained. Both seem to
have passed into the possession of the hospital,
which was answerable to the cathedral chapter
for any dues received in respect of them. I find
in the cathedral account rolls for 1536-7 the fol¬
lowing entry : — “ From Master of St. Cross for the
Station of St. Faith and St. James’ Chapel.” The
term “station, ”of which the uses in mediaeval times
are numerous, seems here to mean a sacred spot at
which the faithful stopped and made an offering.

The foundation appears to have suffered less

than others at the Reformation. The choral ser¬
vices were retained. The ruse by which the figure
of the Blessed Virgin was preserved has already
been told.

Our historical notes may end here, as so much
has been recorded as may serve to throw light
upon the history of the buildings. I may, how¬
ever, mention one further fact which will serve as
an excuse for the imperfect and fragmentary
character of the record. “ In 1616 the ancient
register of the hospital was burnt by the widow
of the then steward.” To be perfectly accurate
let us read “ by the widow of the steward lately
deceased.”

In our endeavour to trace the history of the
fabric it will be impossible within the space
available to do more than sketch the main out¬
lines of its development, dwelling from time to
time upon certain features of peculiar interest,
especially on such as come within the scope of the
illustrations. To work out adequately the archae¬
ology of St. Cross would require a considerable
volume.

It should be remarked in the first instance that
the church takes precedence in time, as it does in
importance, of the secular buildings. Its fabric
was unquestionably commenced by the middle of
the twelfth and completed before the end of the

INTERIOR OF SOUTH TRANSEPT, SHOWING SCREEN FROM ST. FAITH'S.

Photo: E. Dockrec .

The Hospital of St. Cross.

i j

Photo : E. Dockree.

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH-EAST, SHOWING THE TRIPLE ARCH.

fourteenth century. None of the secular buildings
can well be dated earlier than the middle of the
fourteenth century, while their most characteristic
features are of the fifteenth, some additions of
the sixteenth, and at least one feature of the later
years of the seventeenth century. It is clear that
the founder and his earlier successors made the
church their first object, and it may be supposed
that the earlier buildings for the accommodation
of the beneficiaries of the foundation, which
have left no trace, were of a merely utilitarian
and perishable nature. We may therefore con¬
sider the church first in order.

We may remark in the outset that the church
gives evidence of gradual and continuous develop¬
ment, in which signs of subtle and slight changes
of style are abundant, and that the lines of
development are as might be expected from east
to west and from the floor line upwards. In fact
the story of the church as told by its masonry is
one of slow and continuous building, in the course
of which new ideas were being constantly incor¬
porated in the masonry ; and it is not easy to
understand the method by which the services
were maintained during an almost uninterrupted
era of building operations.

Not very much of the existing fabric can be
definitely assigned to de Blois. The earliest

extant work is the lower storey ot the choir,
(though even here the cramped position of the
northernmost window of the south aisle may
indicate a subsequent enlargement of the south
choir aisle), and the lower portion of the south
transept, including the sacristy, of which the floor
appears to have been at some time raised as the
bases of the growing shafts are buried. Probably
this base of the chancel and part of the transept
were left by him covered with temporary roofs,
and supplemented by some sort of makeshift nave
for the accommodation of the worshippers.

We have seen that his successor, Richard
Toclyve, enlarged the scope of the original foun¬
dation as to both the beneficiaries and the staff.
The habitation of the “ four priests, thirteen
secular clerks and several choristers ” was no
doubt built by him, and must have stood some¬
where to the south-east of the church, connected
with it by a cloister which has since also com¬
pletely disappeared. But an indication of its
former existence is possibly to be found in the
cutting off below of the flat south-eastern buttress
of the south choir aisle, which would have
narrowed the gangway of the cloister, and in
the door of access from the cloister to the church
in the angle formed by the junction of the aisle
with the transept which forms a unique feature

i 16

Cross.

DETAIL OF TRIPLE ARCH. THE CHOIR FROM THE NAVE.

The Hospital of St. Cross. i i 7

of great interest. The motive of this peculiar
arrangement, which has been a puzzle to many,
admits, as I think, of a simple and certain
explanation. It was considered unwise to touch
the flat buttress of the south transept, but the
space between it and the aisle was insufficient
for an adequate entrance. The doorway was
therefore extended into the heart of the aisle
wall, and the half-arch built into it to restore
the line of the aisle and to carry the super¬
structure. The inner doorway of this same
entrance, visible in the interior view, seems to
be of somewhat later date. The joggled lintel
within the arch, shown in our illustration, is well
worthy of notice.

If this attribution, which seems more than
probable, is correct, we should assign to Toclyve
the more decorated portion of the round-arched
work. It is, however, possible that before his
work was completed the pointed arch was intro¬
duced. The influence of the adjoining city of
Winchester, which usually felt the earliest move¬
ment of architectural development, allows us to
assign a somewhat early date for this change, and
it is therefore possible that the greater part of
the choir, including the intersecting arches of the
triforium, may be assignable to Toclyve.

For the rest of the church it is not easy to
associate the several types or features with defi¬
nite names. The whole shows, as I have said, a
gradual progressive development. The builders
can, except for short intervals, never have been
idle, but till we reach the period of its completion
no records indicate to whose influence the work
is due. We know that the church was not com¬
pleted at the end of the thirteenth century ; the
Decorated work shown in the west window and
the nave clerestory are usually assigned to Bishop
Edingdon ; and for this there is the authority of
an extant manuscript. Edingdon’s work, how¬
ever, as seen both at Winchester Cathedral and
in the church of the village from which he takes
his name, is definitely “ Perpendicular ” in type.
These works, however, belong — the one certainly,
the other probably — to his episcopate. We may,
therefore, presume that his work at St. Cross
belongs to his pre-episcopal time, when he was
Master of the Hospital. The only features which
are of a date subsequent to Edingdon are the
windows of the tower near the angles, which, on
the authority of the same manuscript, must be
assigned to John de Campeden. Here, again, we
are somewhat surprised to find that the style is
that of transition between Decorated and Per¬
pendicular, whereas William of Wykeham’s work,
most of which is of considerably earlier date,
shows a full development of the later phase. It
is curious that Wykeham’s friend and nominee

should show less advancement than he does in
architectural style.

This brief survey of the history of the mediaeval
history of the church may here be concluded. It
remains only to call attention to certain special
features, records, and conditions ; and, lastly, to
the changes which have been introduced in recent
times.

In the western responds of the crossing, both
north and south, may be seen the stumps of the
rood-beam, which were sawn off close to the stone¬
work.

The north wall of the north transept shows
corbels, the purpose of which presumably was to
support a gallery or galleries, to which access was
obtained from the original eastern wing of the
Hospital, which still bears the name of the Infir¬
mary. From this gallery the transept altars would
be visible, especially that, if altar it was, in the
south wall. The number and dedication of the
altars in the original church cannot with certainty
be determined. Besides the High altar, the slab
of which, with its five incised crosses, is still in
existence, there appear to have been two in the
north transept, one in each of the choir aisles,
and two in the south transept. I can find no
record of the dedication of any of these except
those in the south transept, which, on the autho¬
rity of a manuscript already quoted, were dedi¬
cated respectively to St. Ursula and St. Sitha
and the 11,000 Virgins, and to St. Stephen.
Tradition, however, assigns the altar in the east
wall of the south transept to St. Thomas a Becket :
and some years ago a painting at the back of the
altar, no longer decipherable, is said to have
shown “a knight in Norman chain armour, a
mitre resting on an altar, and remains of a
priestly figure.” * The dedication of the south
transept altars is, however, fixed by the manu¬
script to the date 1388. Undoubtedly, the
manuscript authority is of more weight than
mere tradition or than the interpretation of the
painted subject, which can no longer be checked.
The dilemma might be solved if we suppose that
an altar, originally dedicated to St. Thomas, was
subsequently re-dedicated to St. Ursula and her
Virgins or to St. Stephen, but this seems scarcely
probable. The cult of St. Thomas is unlikely to
have died out before the end of the fourteenth
century, and if the dedication to him were ever
made, it would probably have lasted till the Re¬
formation. I can do no more than record the con¬
flicting evidence, and leave the question unsolved.

It seems reasonable to suppose that altars
would, on the suppression of the churches of

* A similar scene is said to be shown in a painting in Preston
Church, Brighton.

The Hospital of St. Cross

>WM

THE WEST DOORWAY. THE RENAISSANCE SCREEN AND SOUTH CHOIR AISLE.

The Hospital of St. Cross.

I IQ

DETAIL OF SOUTH END OF THE RENAISSANCE SCREEN. DETAIL OF NORTH END OF THE RENAISSANCE SCREEN.

I 20

Cross.

ST. CROSS. GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH.

Photos: E. Dockrec.

Current A rchitecture.

i 2 i

Sparkford, have been dedicated to St. Faith and
St. James, their patron saints ; but this is mere
conjecture, and, if it were so, the dedication to
St. Faith would not have been of earlier date
than 1509. It is further stated that the church
contained altars to St. John the Evangelist and
St. John the Baptist.

The west door of the church, a fine specimen
of developed first pointed, is remarkable for its
octagonal central shaft and for the floral orna¬
mentation of the bold dog-tooth ornament.

The very beautiful Renaissance carving (Renais¬
sance in the more accurate and French use of
the term) which crowns the screen to the south
chancel aisle and forms a canopy to the choir
stalls, is of similar character to the chests on the
choir screen at the Cathedral, and may reasonably
be attributed to the same workmen. We learn
from Mr. Blomfield’s “ History of Renaissance
Architecture in England ” (Vol. I., p. 21) that a
body of Italian merchants was settled at South¬
ampton at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
and that the influence of Italian Art became con¬
spicuous in the locality. It is reasonable, in the
absence of records, to suppose that these features
were due to this immigration, and to assign them
to the first quarter of that century.

The church must originally have been specially

rich in mural painting. Of this many traces
remain — few of them in sufficient preservation to
allow their subjects to be deciphered with any
certainty. Enough, however, of the fresco on the
south wall of the south transept remains to show
that it represented the Descent from the Cross.

Though the painting of the Middle Ages
has so far disappeared, it is not deficiency of
colour of which the visitor will now complain.
Misdirected zeal, intending to do honour to the
church, has resulted in the most unfortunate and
inharmonious daubing of the interior of the choir.
Had a fraction of the money thus expended some
forty years since been devoted to the preservation
of the rapidly perishing mediaeval frescoes, we
might still be in possession of priceless examples
of our earlier national art, and probably of the
key to many archaeological problems. As for the
modern work, we can scarcely avoid a passing
regret for the “ worthy Master who signalised his
reign by completing the whitewashing of the
whole church ! ” Experience teaches that there
are worse things in the world than whitewash.

But it is time to end these notes about the
church, which, fragmentary and eclectic as they
are, have greatly exceeded my intention, and
made it necessary to defer consideration of the
Secular Buildings to a later number.

Basil Champneys.

Current Architecture.

All Saints Convent, Colney Chapel,
St. Albans. — This building has been erected
about three miles from St. Albans for the Sister¬
hood now occupying several houses in Margaret
Street, Cavendish Square ; an orphanage, not
shown on the plan, forms part of the scheme, and
will be erected as funds allow. Local “ grey ”
bricks are being used for the facings generally,
with red bricks as dressings and bands. Weldon
stone is used for the stone dressings, and the roofs
are to be covered with stone slating. The whole
building is heated by hot water and lighted by
electricity, which is generated in the out-build¬
ings, and carried in subways to the various parts
of the building. Water will be pumped by the
same engines into the three smaller towers in
which are situated the sanitary arrangements.
The buildings stand on the site of an old mansion,
which it was thought desirable to pull down.
The grounds include many acres of park, with
fine old, walled gardens, besides lawns and shrub¬
beries. The contract for the foundations was
carried out by Messrs. Miskin & Son, of St. Albans,

and the superstructure by Messrs. William King
& Son, of London, at a cost of nearly £40,000,
exclusive of the chapel, which is not now being
erected. Mr. Leonard Stokes, of Westminster, is
the architect.

Rhodes Building, Cape Town. — This
building has been erected of the simplest materials
but built perhaps more solidly than any similar
structure in Cape Town. The material for the
walls is granite from Table Mountain. The
woodwork throughout is of teak, some of the
principal rooms being panelled. The general
treatment of the finish of the walls is a plain white¬
wash, the open corridors being lined to a certain
height with plain green Dutch tiles. The floors
of the corridors are all paved with large, flat, red
Dutch tiles, with the exception of the ground
floor and the court which is black and white
marble. The only feature of especial interest in
the building is the central court which is open to
the sky, and which adds considerably to the
comfort of the offices in the summer in this warm

12 2

Current Architecture

ALL SAINTS CONVENT, COLNEY CHAPEL, ST. ALBANS.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE BUILDINGS FROM THE NORTH-EAST. LEONARD STOKES, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

£ 3r

U_J <-T)
CtC

2= wo
oEr

< to £

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ii_i xr

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UNBUILT

124

Current A r chit e cture

ALL SAINTS CONVENT, COLNEY CHAPEL, ST. ALBANS.

THE QUADRANGLE FROM THE NORTH-WEST. LEONARD STOKES, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture

VOL. XIV. — L

Photo : E. Dockree. ^

ALL SAINTS CONVENT, COLNEY CHAPEL, ST. ALBANS.

THE QUADRANGLE FROM THE SOUTH-EAST. LEONARD STOKES, ARCHITECT.

Current A rckitecture

i 26

Photo ; E. Dockree.

ALL SAINTS CONVENT, COLNEY CHAPEL, ST. ALBANS.

DETAILS OF MAIN ENTRANCE. LEONARD STOKES, ARCHITECT.

SCULPTURE

BY H. WILSON.

Current Architecture

i 2

Photo : E. Dockree.

ALL SAINTS CONVENT, COLNEY CHAPEL, ST. ALBANS.

FROM THE SOUTH-WEST. LEONARD STOKES, ARCHITECT.

L 2

12-8

Current Architecture.

THE RHODES BUILDING, CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA.
ENTRANCE FRONT.

BAKER AND MASEY, ARCHITECTS.

Current A r chit e cture ,

1 29

THE RHODES BUILDING, CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
THE STAIRCASE AND INNER HALL.

BAKER AND MASEY, ARCHITECTS.

Current Architecture.

THE RHODES BUILDING, CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA.
THE INNER HALL, LOOKING TOWARDS THE ENTRANCE.
BAKER AND MASEY, ARCHITECTS.

Curren t A rch itecture ,

Ground Floor Plan

4+444+-

SCALE OF FEET

THE RHODES BUILDING, CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA.
BAKER AND MASEY, ARCHITECTS.

"four yards street

OFFICE

ENTRANCE

C R o 5 S

SCALE OF FEET

GROUND FLOOR PLAN :

THE EAGLE INSURANCE BUILDING, MANCHESTER.
CHARLES HEATHCOTE AND SONS, ARCHITECTS.

KING STREET

Cu rren t A rch it e cture .

3 2

THE EAGLE INSURANCE BUILDING, MANCHESTER. CHARLES HEATHCOTE AND SONS, ARCHITECTS.

climate. The fountain in the centre is sur¬
mounted by a copy of one of the Zymbaba birds,
the fountain itself being of Verona marble. There
is a space left on the outside at the corner for
a bronze memorial tablet which will be placed
there in memory of the late Mr. Rhodes, to
whose initiative the building is mainly due.
It should be mentioned that most of the build¬
ings in Cape Town have been hitherto plaster.
This is almost the first building of any size
erected entirely of granite, and is in that re¬
spect alone perhaps of some interest. The
building was erected by the De Beers Company
to house the group of enterprises in which the
late Mr. Rhodes was chiefly interested, suites
being provided for the Be Beers Consolidated
Mines, the Administrators of the Rhodes Estates,

the British South Africa Company, the Rhodesian
Railways, the De Beers Dynamite Works, and
others. The architects are Messrs. Herbert Baker
and Masey of Cape Town.

The New Eagle Insurance Company’s
building, of whose exterior and the ground floor
plan we give reproductions, has recently been
erected on a site at the corner of Cross and
Ring Streets, Manchester. The building has been
carried out in white Cullingworth stone and green
slates. The company occupies the first floor, the
remainder of the building is set apart for letting,
both as shops and offices. The contractors for
the work were Messrs. Southern and Sons, of
Salford, and the architects Messrs. Chas. Heath-
cote & Sons, of Manchester.

Further Strand Improvement.

By the Honorary Secretary of the Further Strand Improvement Committee.

The Holborn to Strand Improvement
Scheme was conceived and has been thus far
carried out with a boldness which is highly credit¬
able to the London County Council, and the
manner in which the Improvements Committee
of the Council has received the criticisms made
on the planning of a section of the Strand shows
a consideration to public opinion which is not
always associated with those in authority. It is
some time since the Council’s plan was settled,
and though it was the result of consultation with
the Royal Institute of British Architects, it was
only after the new roadway was opened that the
alignment adopted was realised by the public.

Several criticisms were forwarded to the Coun¬
cil and were referred to the Im¬
provements Committee, and, before
adjourning for the summer recess, the
Committee reported to the Council
on three proposals for amendment of
the Council’s plan, which were the
outcome of the public interest in the
matter. They also erected poles and
boards on the site marking the lines
of the suggested modifications, and
stated that they would submit to the
Council a definite recommendation
thereon after the recess.

The suggestions for amendment of
the plan are as follows :

i. Proposed by the Further Strand
Improvement Committee and shown
in the accompanying plan. It will
be seen that this plan sets back the
eastern horn of the crescent into
alignment with the western horn (on
which the New Gaiety stands) giving
the roadway its natural course direct
to the Law Courts and Fleet Street,
bringing the church of St. Mary-
le-Strand into alignment with the
thoroughfare, and providing an island
pavement, one of those open spaces
in which London is so sadly defi¬
cient, where trees could flourish with¬
out the hindrance to light and ven¬
tilation which often results from
planting trees in the sidewalks where
buildings are without forecourts. This
island pavement would also afford a
good place for seats where the pedes¬
trian might rest without interrupting,
or being interrupted by, the stream
of traffic.

Sir Edward J. Poynter, President of the Royal
Academy, writing to me, says : “ I consider that
your proposal for an island pavement with trees,
as shown on the plan, is a most excellent sugges¬
tion. Besides the provision for a pleasant and
shady resting-place for pedestrians, which such
a space would afford, place might be found on it
for one or more of the memorial statues which
are from time to time voted to prominent citizens,
and which would look so much better when
grouped with trees than when posted in bare
open places.”

2. Proposed by the Royal Institute of British
Architects and now endorsed by Mr. Hamo
Thornycroft, R.A., who first called attention to

1 34

Further Strand Improvement.

the need of some amendment of the Council's
plan. The amendment proposed by the Institute
is shown on the plan by the line A A. This only
sets back the frontage east of the intended foot¬
way into Aldwych, and is practically no improve¬
ment when viewed from the west, until this point
is reached, while the symmetry of the plan is so
far destroyed that I am satisfied the Institute are
mistaken in informing the Council that this would
be observable only on paper and would not be
seen when looking at the buildings themselves.
On the contrary, the awkward angles on this line
of frontage could not be otherwise than prominent
and unsightly. The line, however, would be an
improvement when viewed from the Law Courts,
as from this point it would bring the church of
St. Mary-le-Strand into alignment with the
thoroughfare.

3. Suggested by the Council’s Superintending
Architect, and shown on the plan by the line B B.
This improvement sets back the whole of the
straight frontage between the two churches, but
the gain to the roadway would be so little
that the plan can only be considered as some¬
what less unsatisfactory than the one at present
adopted.

In their report to the Council the Improve¬
ments Committee gave the estimated cost of the
three schemes, in the loss of building land, as
follows : — 1, £350,000 ; 2, £70,000 ; and 3,

£59,000. It would be interesting to have some
details as to how these valuations were arrived
at. Without details the figures certainly appear
to be excessive. To estimate the value by the
superficial area only would not give a correct
result, as, in such a position, the first considera¬
tion of value is the frontage. Proposal 1 would
reduce the building frontage by about 85 ft., pro¬
posal 2 by about 31 ft., and proposal 3 by about
26 ft. The loss of 85 ft. of frontage in proposal 1,
would undoubtedly lead to some increase in value
of the frontage to the wider Strand, with the
island pavement opposite. A glance at the plan
will at once show that if the present line be re¬
tained, to pedestrians walking westwards from the
Law Courts the Strand would appear to be but
a by-way, and Aldwych the main thoroughfare,
while with the Strand widened as in proposal 1,
with the roadway each side of St. Mary-le-Strand
open to view from the Law Courts, the Strand
would be seen to be w'hat it is, viz., the main
thoroughfare from the City to Charing Cross,

Fitrther Strand Improvement.

VIEW, LOOKING WEST, FROM THE THIRD FLOOR OF THE LAW COURTS.

Whitehall, and the Mall now being opened into
Trafalgar Square.

It is fortunate that the Improvements Com¬
mittee have given publicity to the three proposals
before agreeing to any definite recommendation,
and it may be hoped that the generous policy which
marks every other part of the Holborn to Strand
Improvement Scheme, will lead to the adoption
of the proposal made by the Further Strand Im¬
provement Committee. Any less thorough amend¬
ment of the scheme would be to follow the penny
wise and pound foolish policy of the late Metro¬
politan Board of Works when laying out Shaftes¬
bury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, which are
narrow, second-rate streets, instead of the broad
and noble thoroughfares they should have been.
Surely the London County Council will rather
emulate those great landlords who did not limit
their open spaces to the necessary roadways, but
who, with commendable forethought, minimised
their building leases and gave, to London, squares
with gardens which are such a boon in a crowded
city.

There are questions which are outside the
haggling of the market, and the making of the

Strand into a noble thoroughfare is surely one of
them. About £ 75,000 was spent in improving
Tottenham Court Road at its junction with
Oxford Street, by removing the block of buildings
east of what was then Bozier’s Court. To
begrudge the cost necessary to give the Strand its
natural course to the Law Courts and Fleet
Street, in connection with an improvement
scheme which involves an expenditure of five
millions, would be so discreditable to the intelli¬
gence of the metropolis, that no stone should be
left unturned to secure the adoption of the
proposal of the Further Strand Improvement
Committee, which has already received the sup¬
port of the following Metropolitan Borough
Councils : — Bermondsey, Idammersmith, Maryle-
bone, Paddington, and Wandsworth.

The memorial which the Further Strand Im¬
provement Committee presented to the Council
in July, will be followed by another memorial
after the recess, and all who take any interest in
the improvement of the Metropolis are invited to
join the Committee and sign the second memorial.
Communications may be addressed to the Com¬
mittee at 7, Pall Mall.

Mark H. Judge.

Architectural Education.

V. — L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE ^ARCHITEC¬
TURE EN FRANCE.

By J. Guadet,

Professeur a !' Ecole des Beaux-arts. Inspecteur General des
Bdtiments Civils.

Il serait tres difficile de concevoir ce qu’est
en l- ranee l’enseignement de l’Architecture, si Ton
ne se rendait pas compte d'une facon plusgenerale
de ce qu’est et de ce qu’a ete depuis des siecles
1'enseignement des arts au sens le plus large du
mot. Chez nous en effet 1’enseignement de
1’architecture est d’abord et avant tout artistique ;
il ne neglige ni la science ni la technique, mais il
s'attache en premier lieu a produire des artistes
— ceux qui l’auront merite par leurs dons et leurs
etudes — et des artistes utiles par une saine prepa¬
ration aux difficultes de la profession. Notre
pretention n'est pas que l’architecte entrant dans
la vie pratique trouve dans 1’enseignement scolaire
des recettes ou des procedes pour elaborer surement
une composition determinee; mais nous cherchons
a le rendre souple et ingenieux, habile a trouver
des compositions, fecond et imaginatif, instruit des
lois et des meyens de la construction ; son bagage
sera riche et prevoyant, tandis que plus tard son
choix ou les circonstances orienteront sa voie dans
les applications de ses etudes. L’enseignement
est done general et ne specialise pas; nous essayons
de former des artistes et des hommes.

Or, e’est la la pensee maitresse dans tout l’en¬
seignement des arts. Cela resulte d’une longue
suite d’efforts, d’une perseverance seculaire dans
une methode qui ne ressemble a aucune autre;
1’enseignement amical et personnel de maitre a
disciple plutot que de professeur a eleve : on est
eleve d’une ecole, sans doute ; mais avant tout,
apres tout, et par dessus tout, on est l’eleve du
maitre choisi, de l’ami experiments et paternel,
du conseiller affectueux dont l’empreinte sera pro-
fonde et durable ; et pendant longtemps il n’y a
pas eu d’autre enseignement artistique : le maitre,
avant qu’il ne s’eteignit, transmettait le flambeau
aux heritiers de sa conscience d’artiste, s’acquittant
envers les plus jeunes de la dette que lui-meme
avait contractee envers ses aines.

Au Moyen-age, cette transmission fut le plus
souvent monastique ; plus tard elle fut plus per¬
sonnels, il n’importe. Le maitre livrait tout ce qu’il
savait, tout ce que sa vie, ses succes, ses erreurs
lui avaient enseigne a lui-meme : il se donnait.
Et telle est bien par exemple l’impression qui se
degage de la lecture des memoires de Benvenuto
Cellini, qu’il ne faut pas croire sur parole dans
ses recits, mais qui nous montre avec tant de
verite ce qu’etaient de son temps les maitres, ce
qu’etaient leurs eleves — devoues jusqu’au poignard !

Moven-age, Renaissance, cesgrandes et fecondes
epoques d’art eurent cette meme methode d’en-
seignement : si bien des choses de ces temps passes
ont disparu, celle-la du moinss’est perpetueeavec les
modifications inevitables qu’apportent les siecles :
nous sommes encore aujourd’hui, avec un souvenir
reconnaissant que la vie n’efface pas, les eleves de
l’artiste, disparu ou vivant encore, qui a ete le
guide et la conscience aimee de nos etudes. Cela
est vrai de l’architecte, cela est vrai aussi du
peintre, du statuaire, du musicien : e’est l’admirable
unite de l’enseignement artistique, e’est aussi son
originalite et sa gloire.

Cependant l’etendue toujours grandissante des
connaissances necessaires a l’architecte exigeait
de 1’enseignement collectif, et par consequent des
Ecoles. Mais ces ecoles sont toujours des Ecoles
des Beaux-arts, depuis quelques ecoles modestes
dans diverses villes jusqu’a la grande Ecole
Nationale des Beaux-arts de Paris. Les eleves
architectes sont done toujours en contact avec
d’autres artistes de l’avenir, et lors meme qu’ils
y vont momentanement etudier les sciences, ils
vivent dans une atmosphere d’art, qui ne leur
permet jamais d’oublier leur vocation.

Ainsi done chez nous, l’eleve architecte s’instruit
a deux foyers : l’Ecole et l’atelier du maitre. Ces
deux enseignements se completent sans contradic¬
tion. Il convient d’exposer le mecanisme assez
delicat de cette instruction double et cependant
unique. Et comme les ecoles secondaires, tout
comme les Ecoles regionales qu’on s’applique a
creer en ce moment meme, ne sont ou ne seront
que des reproductions plus ou moins completes de
l’Ecole Nationale des Beaux-arts, e’est celle-ci qu’il
y a lieu d’etudier dans ses rapports avec l’enseigne¬
ment libre qu’elle doit respecter et encourager.

L’Ecole enseigne ex-cathedra ce dont l’enseigne¬
ment est certain ou a peu pres certain ; ce qui
sera enseigne a peu pres de la meme maniere et
avec les memes conclusions quel que soit le pro¬
fesseur : ainsi par exemple la geometrie, la phy¬
sique sont, par comparaison avec l’art, des sciences
en quelque sorte impersonnelles. Le professeur
de chacune de ces sciences, unique pour tous les
eleves, changera aujourd’hui, l’enseignement de
demain n’en restera pas moins assure et identique
a lui-meme. Outre les sciences en quelque sorte
preparatoires, l’Ecole enseigne encore les sciences
d’application, comme la stereotomie, la resistance
des materiaux, la construction ; l’histoire dans ses
diverses branches, le dessin et le modelage. Dans
tout cela, sans aller jusqu’a dire, loin de la, que le
professeur soit indifferent, il est certain que le
meme professeur peut convenir a tous les eleves,
qu’aucune nature ne sera violentee pareeque ce
professeur sera aujourd'hui celui-ci, demain celui-

A rch it e dura l Educa tion .

i37

la. Mais, n’etait le danger des formules trop
absolues, on pourrait dire pour bien fairecomprendre
la fonction de l’Ecole, qu’elle n’enseigne pas
l’Architecture, pas plus qu’elle n’enseigne la pein-
ture, laissant cette mission a la fois plus haute et
plus intime au maitre choisi, a l’artiste quel qu’il
soit dont a tort ou a raison, a ses risques et perils
et pour son dam ou son profit l’eleve aura voulu
et librement reclame la direction artistique, les
conseils, la conduite personnelle et l’autorite
acceptee.

Mais en meme temps, l’Ecole est le gymnase
qui groupe et met en presence, en lutte constante,
ces tendances diverses et ces efforts rivaux. Elle
impartit les programmes de tous les exercices, de
tous les concours ; tout est concours en effet, et
sur le meme sujet les eleves des maitres les plus
divers apportent simultanement le resultat de
leurs etudes conseillees, dirigees par leurs maitres
personnels. Ces concours, justement denommes
Concours d' emulation sont juges par un jury unique,
compose aussi liberalement que faire se peut. Ce
ne sont pas seulement les eleves qui concourent
entre euxet beneficientde cette emulation feconde ;
ce sont les enseignements divers eux-memes qui
sont ainsi aux prises, qui remportent la victoire
ou subissent la defaite, qui d’apres ces compa-
raisons constantes prosperent dans le succes ou
succombent dans l’impuissance. II y a done,
outre les chefs d’ateliers, maitres personnels dont
nous avons parle — outre les professeurs des divers
cours de l’Ecole — il y a un troisieme rouage dont
le role est tres important, e’est le jury, qui ne juge
bien qu’a la condition de bien savoir que ses
jugements sont aussi, et au premier chef, de
l’enseignement. Ce jury se compose de trente
architectes : vingt sont permanents ; ce sont les
membres de la section d’architecture de l’Aca-
demie des Beaux-arts ; les professeurs architectes
de 1’Ecole, et des artistes designes par une carriere
de devouement aux etudes ; dix sont renouvelables
par tirage au sort tous les ans. Ces fonctions de
jures sont tres laborieuses, car tout le travail des
eleves consiste en concours, et les jugements sont
tres frequents et tres laborieux. II n’est pas
inutile d’ajouter que ces fonctions sont purement
gratuites, et acceptees cependant avec le plus
complet desinteressement par une elite d’artistes
devoues aux etudes, et heureux de temoigner
ainsi leur reconnaissance a 1’Ecole qui jadis les a
formes eux-memes.

Et ce sont ces concours permanents qui assurent
aux eleves les titres et les grades. II n’y a pas de
divisions par annees ; l’eleve une fois admis a
l’Ecole entre en seconde classe ; il y reste tant qu’il
n’a pas acquis les recompenses exigibles dans les
divers concours qui lui sont ouverts ; puis, rapide-
ment ou lentement, il passe en premiere classe, et

la encore trouve des concours permanents ou il
donne la mesure de sa valeur par ses succes ; a
chaque concours sont attachees des recompenses
graduees, medailles ou mentions de valeur inegale
assurant aux plus forts l’obtention plus rapide des
points exigibles, aux plus faibles leur obtention
plus lente — ou l’echec final.

C’estdonc 1’emulation, la lutte de tous les jours,
qui est lame de ces etudes. Les moyens coer-
citifs n’existent pour ainsi dire pas; on s’adresse a
des hommes et non a des enfants, a des hommes
qui doivent comprendre leur interet, et qui
d’ailleurs sont bien vite saisis par l’ardeur de la
lutte— ou qui des le debut restent annihiles parmi
les trainards et les epaves. A celui qui veut, toutes
les ambitions sont permises, tous les moyens sont
facilites ; a celui qui ne veut pas, il ne s’offre que
l’abandon, le renoncement a la lutte. Toutes les
ecoles presentent bien un peu le meme pheno-
mene ; aucune ne le presente autant que l’Ecole
des Beaux-arts, aucune ne se prete a d’aussi grands
ecarts entre les ardeurs heureuses et les impuis-
sances desemparees.

Tel est dans ses grandes lignes et dans son esprit
general 1’enseignement de l’Architecture en France.
Il reste a voir son fonctionnement.

Vers seize ou dix-huit ans, un peu plus tot, un
peu plus tard, le jeunehomme s’est destine a l’archi-
tecture. Tout d’abord, il choisit son atelier, e’est
a dire son maitre, d’apres les conseils qui inspirent
confiance a lui ou a ses parents. Si le maitre
l’accepte, cela suffit. Il ne sait rien encore, tant
mieux. En meme temps qu'il fait la ses pre¬
mieres etudes d’architecture, et d’abord de des-
sin graphique, de lavis, de projections, il etudie les
matieres scientifiques preparatoires, et aussi le
dessin et le modelage. Enfin il se presente avec
ou sans succes aux epreuves d’admission a l’Ecole
des Beaux-arts. Car, tandis que pour l’atelier le
maitre, seul juge chez lui, re£oit qui il veut,
1’Ecole ne s’ouvre qu’a ceux qui ont deja un mini¬
mum de connaissances requises. C’est 1’objet des
epreuves d’admission qui ont lieu deux fois par an,
en avril et en octobre.

L’ensemble de ces epreuves comporte a la fois
une preparation artistique et une preparation
scientifique. Elies sont accessibles non seulement
aux Francais, ages de 16 a 30 ans, mais aussi aux
etrangers qui viennent en grand nombre demander
a notre Ecole soit l’instruction complete soit le
complement de leurs etudes.

Tout d’abord Vaspirant doit faire en douze-
heures, et en loge, e’est a dire dans un local isole,
une esquisse d’architecture sur un programme
donne, commun a tous. Ce programme est com¬
pose de telle sorte qu’il n’exige pas le bonheur
d’une solution que l’un pourrait connaitre, par
hasard peut-etre, l’autre ignorer ; e’est done un sujet

A rch itectura l Ed itca tion .

13-8

d'ordre general et non special, pouvant permettre
au candidat de montrer la valeur generale de sa
preparation.

Void les titres de quelques uns des programmes
qui ont ete donnes au cours de ces dernieres
a'nnees : —

Unepartie d'un vestibule votite. Le motif milieu
d'une terrasse. L' entree d'un hopital d'enfants. Le
pavilion d' entree principale d'une cour d'honneur. Un
angle de cour. Un avant-corps. Un peristyle avec
porche et portiques, etc., etc.

Les echelles sont fixees par le programme, ainsi
que les divers prescriptions a observer. Le trace
correct des ombres et de l’appareil est recommande.

Ces esquisses, dont le nombre depasse ordinaire-
ment 400 a chaque session, sont exposees sans
aucunordre de classification pouvant etre prejuge,
et soumises, avec l’anonymat le plus rigoureux,
a l’examen du jury d’architecture, lequel apres
s’etre eclaire par toutes methodes dont il est
seul juge, attribue a chaque composition des
points de zero a vingt. Les notes six et au des-
sous sont eliminatoires. En general, le nombre
des conserves se trouve compris entre la moitie et
les deux tiers. Ceci d’ailleurs depend absolument
de la valeur generale du concours.

II faut ajouter que prealablement au classement
le jury prononce s'il y a lieu la mise hors de concours
des esquisses qui ne repondent pas aux prescrip¬
tions du programme, soit comme etant incom-
pletes, on par ce que entre les plan, coupe, fagade, il
n’y a pas concordance. Il va sans dire d’ailleurs
que pendant le concours la surveillance est aussi
active que possible, enfin d’eviter les communi¬
cations, les apports clandestins de documents, etc.

Apres le jugement de cette premiere epreuve,
jugement suivi selon une regie invariable d’une
exposition publique, les aspirants ainsi admis
pour l’architecture ont a subir une epreuve de
dessin d’apres le platre, tete ou ornement, et une
epreuve de modelage d’apres un modele d’ornement
en bas-relief. Chacune de ces epreuves se fait en
huit heures, par seances de deux heures separees
par des repos. La procedure du jugement est la
meme, sauf qu'ici le jury est compose par tiers de
peintres, de sculpteurs et d’architectes. La classi¬
fication est encore de zero a vingt, avec elimi¬
nation au dessous de la note cinq.

Voila done, tres serieusement controlees, les
epreuves qui permettent de juger des aptitudes
artistiques des candidats. Et alors, en attribuant
a chacune des epreuves un coefficient qui est deter¬
mine chaque annee par le Conseil Superieur, mais
qui en fait est depuis longtemps de 15 pour l’archi¬
tecture, 10 pour le dessin, 5 pour le modelage, il
est etabli un premier classement de tous les
candidats non elimines dans l’une quelconque de
ces epreuves. Ainsi, celui qui aurait eu dans

chacune la note 10 se trouverait avoir : 10 x 15 +
10 x 10 + 10 x 5 — 300. La liste ainsi etablie, on
n’admet aux epreuves scientifiques qu’un nombre
d’aspirants double du nombre definitif des admis¬
sions, lequel est depuis des annees 60, dont 45
frangais et 15 Grangers, au maximum, et sous la
condition que le quinzieme Granger soit par ses
points avant le 46 eme frangais.

Ainsi done s’etablit une premiere selection ; de
450 environ, nombre moyen des presentations to-
tales, on est arrive a 120. Ces izosubiront toutes
les epreuves scientifiques, lesquelles comprennent:

Mathematiques. — Des exercices de calcul faits
en loges ; un examen oral sur l’arithmetique, la geo¬
metric elementaire (plane et dans l’espace), l’alge-
bre jusqu’aux equations du second degre inclusive-
ment.

Geometrie descriptive, premiere partie (le
point, la ligne droite et le plan). — Une epure de
geometrie descriptive appliquee a une projection
d’architecture, faite en loges et en huit heures ;
un examen de geometrie descriptive.

Histoire Generale. — Une composition ecrite
et un examen sur les notions d'histoire generale.

Bien que rien ne soit prescrit a l’examinateur
quant aux matieres des epreuves, dans les limites
du programme general qu’il serait trop long de
transcrire ici, en fait les compositions ecrites de
calcul se rapportent le plus souvent au systeme
decimal, longueurs, surfaces, cubes, poids, etc.
Quant a l’epure de geometrie descriptive, e’est en
meme temps un exercice scientifique et graphique.
Ainsi par exemple un element d’architecture tel
qu’une porte encadree de pilastres, couronnee d’un
entablement et d’un fronton sera donnee par ses
elements necessaires; il s’agira de laprojetersuivant
un angle determine avec le plan vertical de projec¬
tion, comme un motif qui se repete sur les diverses
faces d’une abside ; on devra dans cette nouvelle
position tracer les ombres, etc.

A chacune de ces epreuves, il y a des notes
eliminatoires, et des notes pouvant s’elever jusqu’a
20. Ces notes sont encore multipliees par des
coefficients : mathematiques, 5 ; geometrie de¬
scriptive, 5 ; histoire, 1. Apres quoi, la liste
generale est etablie d’apres les points de chaque
candidat en architecture — dessin — modelage —
mathematiques — geometrie descriptive — histoire ;
les totaux calcifies pour chacun, et la reception
definitive regie par les totaux les plus eleves, sous
la condition de nombre indiquee plus haut.

Ces epreuves sont difficiles ; non pas tant par
la difficulte des programmes, que par suite de la
valeur d’un grand nombre de concurrents. La
proportion moyenne des receptions est d’environ
un regu sur huit candidats ; etre dans le premier
huitieme n’est jamais chose facile, et il faut ajouter
que beaucoup de nos aspirants — et parfois des

A rch itectu ra l E due a tion .

1 39

meilleurs — n’ont pas retju beaucoup d’instruction
prealable, et que beaucoup aussisont, des ces debuts,
obliges de partager leur temps entre les etudes et
les exigences de la vie materielle.

A vrai dire, pendant longtemps les epreuves
d’admission n’ont pas ete un concours comme elles
le sont devenues ; ce n’etait qu’une serie d’examens,
et quiconque s’etait montre suffisant dans chaque
matiere etait admis sans consideration de nombre,
C'etait. plus juste et plus logique. Dans une ecole
qui prepare a une profession libre et ouverte, une
fixation de nombre ne peut qu’etre arbitraire, et
assurement pour les architectes il devrait en etre de
meme que pour les medecins, les avocats, etc. Le
nombre fixe a priori a l’entree d’une ecole ne se
comprend que la ou cette ecole doit pourvoir a un
recrutement dont les necessites sont determinees ;
ainsi le Ministre de la guerre fixe chaque annee,
d’apres les besoins de 1’armee, le nombre des
aspirants officiers qui entreront a 1’Ecole de Saint
Cyr; il fixe de concert avec le Ministre des Travaux
publics le nombre des aspirants officiers ou
ingenieurs que recevra l’Ecole Polytechnique ; les
promotions y sont de nombre variable et cette
variete est motivee.

Chez nous, pour que les architectes exe^ant en
France pussent tous avoir fait les etudes indispens-
ables, il faudrait au bas mot des promotions
annuelles de 300; ou rnieux, il faudrait, que
1’Ecole put etre ouverte a tous ceux qui,
suffisamment prepares, voudraient y entrer.
Des raisons uniquement materielles d’emplace-
ments ont oblige a restreindre ces admissions,
a en faire un concours, condammant les moins
heureux a se former au hasard d’un apprentissage
sans methode et sans direction. Ces raisons
materielles sont certaines, mais il est permis d’e-
sperer que le creation d’Ecoles regionales d’archi-
tecture permettra de retablir la logique et en
quelque sorte la verite sociale dans une organisa¬
tion que des insuffisances de moyens ont faussee
au detriment du but a poursuivre.

Jusqu’ici, l’eleve n’a recu de l’Ecole aucun ensei-
gnement, il n’est venu y chercher que la constata-
tion des etudes par lui faites dans son atelier, dans
les cours qu’il a pu suivre partout. Le role en-
seignant de l’Ecole va commencer.

L’ aspirant d’hier est devenu eleve de la Seconde
classe de la section d’ architecture a l’Ecole des
Beaux-arts. La, il aura a faire des etudes scienti-
fiques et des etudes artistiques.

Pour les sciences, il suivra d’abord les cours
de mathematiques et de geometrie descriptive ;
ces deux cours, apres une revision tres rapide des
matieres de l’admission, comprennent tout ce qui
dans ces sciences est indispensable a 1’ architecte ;
son instruction scientifique pourra, bien entendu,
aller au dela : elle ne doit pas rester en de9a.

Le programme du cours de mathematiques com¬
prend en resume : Les notions necessaires d’algebre
et d’ analyse au dela des matieres de l’admission ;
la trigonometrie et ses applications ; la geometrie
des surfaces coniques, cylindriques et de revolu¬
tion, applications aux mesures de surfaces et de
volumes ; la geometrie analytique : fonctions, de-
rivees, equations des courbes, coordonnees, etc. ;
la mecanique : forces, couples, moments, equilibre ;
statique graphique ; moments d’ inertie ; machines
simples ; poussee des terres et de l’eau.

Celui du cours de geometrie descriptive com¬
prend : Une premiere partie qui est la revision des
matieres de l’admission, principes et moyens de
la science des projections, deplacements, rabatte-
ments, rotations, changements de plans de pro¬
jection ; representation de figures planes, intersec¬
tions ; de solides, intersections, developpements,
etc. Une seconde partie traitant de la sphere, des
surfaces developpables (cones et cylindres) ; des
angles triedres, des distances, des tangences ; des
surfaces de revolution ; des surfaces regies ; des
plans cotes, du trace des ombres, etc.

Viennent ensuite le cours de stereotomie et leve
de plans, et le cours de perspective.

La stereotomie enseigne aux eleves la coupe des
bois dans la charpente, et la coupe des pierres :
planchers, combles, escaliers, voutes de toutes
natures, avec exemples d’applications ; le leve des
plans et le nivellement avec operations sur le
terrain.

La perspective embrasse la theorie et les appli¬
cations usuelles, avec etude d’exemples.

A la suite de chacun de ces cours, ou selon les
cas pendant leur duree, les eleves ont a faire des
exercices ecrits (mathematiques) ou graphiques
(geometrie descriptive, stereotomie, perspective)
et a subir un examen oral. Il est decerne des
medailles et des mentions; la mention au mini¬
mum est obligatoire.

Et apres cela, les eleves ont a suivre le cours et
a executer le concours de construction. Mais ces
etudes exigeant a la fois une preparation scienti¬
fique et une preparation architecturale ; il est plus
logique de reserver ce sujet.

En effet, les etudes scientifiques dont il vient
d’ etre parle n’absorbent pas tout le temps des
eleves, et ils trouvent sans discontinuite des
programmes d’exercices artistiques.

Tout d’abord, ils doivent obtenir soit une
medaille soit au moins une mention dans des con¬
cours de dessin d’apres l’ornement en platre. Ces
exercices sont faits sous la direction du professeur
special de dessin ornemental.

Ils doivent ensuite obtenir de meme une recom¬
pense dans les exercices de dessin de figure et de
modelage d’ornement ; ces exercices sont egale-
ment faits avec les conseils et sous la direction

1 4°

A relate dura l Education.

des professeurs speciaux de dessin et de mode-
lage.

Pour l’architecture, il y toute l’annee des con-
cours de trois sortes : concours sur elements ana¬
lytiques, et concours sur projets rendus, les uns et
lies autres d’une duree de deux mois ; concours
sur esquisses, en douze heures, tous les deux mois,
pendant la duree des premiers.

Les concours sur elements analytiques proposent
aux eleves des sujets elementaires, comme leur
nom l’indique, assez restreints pour pouvoir etre
etudies a grande echelle en penetrant bien dans le
sujet. L'eleve en fait d’abord, a l’echelle indiquee
par le programme, une esquisse (en douze heures)
dont il conserve le caique ; puis dans son atelier,
avec les conseils de son maitre, il en fait l’etude et
le rendu, qui au jour fixe est apporte a l’Ecole et
juge concurremment avec ceux des eleves de tous
les ateliers.

Quelques titres de programmes indiqueront la
nature des sujets qui peuvent etre proposes pour ces
concours : Deux travees de portiques voutes ;
L’angle d’un edifice public; un peristyle; une
loggia ; une travee d’une salle plafonnee ; une revo¬
lution d’escalier ; une etude de voutes spheriques
en pendentifs ; la porte cochere d’un grand hotel ;
trois travees d’ architecture d'habitation ; une etude
d’ ordres superposes; une cour interieure, etc., etc.

Simultanement, mais avec interdiction pour les
eleves de faire les deux concours a la fois, afin d’e
viter des etudes trop hatives et trop incompletes,
ont lieu les concours sur projets rendus. Le
mecanisme est le meme : esquisse en douze heures,
etude et mise au net dans l’atelier avec les conseils
du maitre, jugement simultane ; apres tout juge-
ment, exposition publique.

Ici, les eleves, deja un peu plus avances sont
exerces a des sujets plus complexes, soit frag¬
ments d’un edifice important, soit ensemble de
petit edifice.

Parmi les programmes fragmentaires, on peut
citer : Un vestibule; l’escalier principal d’un
musee ; une chambre a coucher de parade ; le ser¬
vice des morts dans un grand hopital ; une
chambre de tribunal civil ; un salon d’attente dans
un Hotel de ville ; une salle des assembles gene-
rales du Conseil d’Etat, etc.

Et parmi les programmes d’ensemble : Un
edifice pour des fetes et reunions ; un hotel de
caisse d’epargne ; un poste d’eclusiers ; un restau¬
rant dans les environs de Paris ; un hotel des
ventes ; un lavoir ; un beffroi ; un poste d’hivernage
des chasseurs Alpins ; une maison d’arret, etc.

Il est accorde dans ces concours, sur elements
analytiques, des secondes mentions ; sur projets
rendus, des premieres et des secondes mentions.

Enfin, pour les concours sur esquisses, les
sujets proposes ont pour objet de preparer les

eleves a la composition qui sera le but principal
de leurs etudes en premiere classe. Les pro¬
grammes en sont done, sauf reduction a une petite
echelle, des programmes de grande composition. Si
l’eleve se fourvoie, cette erreur qui se limite a douze
heures ne le retient pas pendant deux mois sur
une solution erronee ; s’il reussit, il s'est utilement
prepare a ses etudes futures ; disons mieux : il s’y est
utilement prepare dans tous les cas. Naturelle-
ment, e’est surtout la disposition generale du plan
qui fait la valeur de ces esquisses, dont les sujets
sont souvent tres importants ; ainsi : Un hotel de
ville pour un chef lieu d’arrondissement ; le plan
d’un jardin ; un casino ; un chateau ; une eglise
paroissiale ; un petit hospice de menages ; un
groupe scolaire ; un musee d’antiquites ; un Tatter-
sail ; un entrepot des vins, etc., etc.

Pour tous ces concours, comme pour ceux de
premiere classe, le redacteur des programmes doit
chercher a faire etudier aux eleves ce qui parait
comporter des lacunes dans l’esprit de la genera¬
lity ; ainsi, suivant la mentality — pourrait-on dire —
de l’Ecole en general, il se portera de preference
tantot vers les sujets de composition sage et
reflechie, tantot vers les sujets d’imagination ou
d’aspect, ou vers les choses de la decoration. Il
doit chercher aussi a differencier les programmes de
ceux qui ont pu etre autrefois donnes sur des sujets
analogues afin d’eviter les pastiches ou les repe¬
titions.

Reste I’etude de la construction, qui peut etre
considereecomme l’obje.t principal destravauxde la
seconde classe. Elle ne peut etre abordee qu’apres
une double preparation, scientifique et artistique.
Scientifique, cela va sans dire, et les cours de
sciences y pourvoient ; mais artistique aussi, car la
science seule est impuissante a concevoir ce qui
doit etre construit. La science controle, elle ne
cree point, et tout d’abord il faut que l’architecte ait
concu l’oeuvre constructible ; alors la science
viendra controler les dimensions necessaires, veri¬
fier la stability. exiger peut-etre des corrections.
Aussi ce cours ne peut-il etre fait utilement que
par un architecte, a la fois compositeur et savant.

Le cours de construction se divise en deux
parties : La partie theorique, ou resistance des
materiaux, d’abord dans les cas purement theo-
riques ; elasticity et deformation, pressions, exten¬
sion, compression, effort tranchant, flexion ;
moments d’inertie et de resistance ; efforts et con¬
sequences, etc. ; Systemes articules, poutres a
treill is ; puis les applications aux combles, aux
arcs, a la stabilite des massifs, aux resistances a
Taction du vent, des poussees de la terre ou de
l’eau ; la stabilite des voutes dans leurs differents
modes de construction, etc.

La seconde partie comprend les notions tech¬
niques : Constructions on mai;onnerie, pierres,

A rch i tectu ra / Edtica tion .

briques, mortiers, etc., fondations dans les divers
cas ; mise en oeuvre des materiaux ; voutes, leur
execution ; escaiiers divers ; construction en bois,
combles, couvertures ; menuiserie ; constructions
metalliques, poutres, planchers, combles, etc. ;
couvertures et evacuation des eaux ; canalisations
de toutes natures, chauffage, cabinets d’aisance,
ascenseurs, ventilation, etc., etc.

Pendant la duree du cours, les eleves doivent
faire des exercices de calcul, en loges ; des exer-
cices graphiques dans les ateliers, sur des sujets
se rapportant a la construction en maijonnerie, en
charpente de bois ou de metal, etc, ; puis ils
passent un premier examen sur la partie theorique
du cours. Lorsque ils ont satisfait a ces obliga¬
tions, ils prennent part au concours de construc¬
tion generale, etude d’un projet dont le programme
est combine pour exiger l’emploi de moyens varies
de construction ; enfin, ils subissent devant leur
projet un examen qui porte a la fois sur leur
travail et sur la partie technique du cours. Ils
peuvent obtenir d’apres l’ensemble des notes re¬
sultant de ces diverses epreuves, des premieres
secondes ou troisiemes medailles, ou des mentions.
La mention au moins est exigible.

Apres accomplissement des travaux de la se-
conde classe, l’eleve doit done avoir obtenu pour
passer en premiere classe : En mathematiques, geo-
metrie descriptive, stereotomie, perspective, une
medaille ou une mention ; en architecture, sur
elements analytiques, deux valours , e’est a dire deux
secondes mentions ; sur concours de composition
(projets rendus ou esquisses) quatre valeurs, dont
deux au moins sur projets rendus, (une premiere
mention comptant pour deux valeurs) ; en con¬
struction, une medaille ou une mention ; en dessin
ornemental, en dessin de figure, en modelage, une
medaille ou une mention ; enfin en histoire de
l’architecture une medaille ou une mention dans
les exercices graphiques du cours.

Tout cela demande plus ou moins de temps; le
sejour en seconde classe ne peut guere etre moins
de deux ans et demi.

En premiere classe, les etudes des eleves sont
essentiellement artistiques. Tous les deux mois,
il leur est ouvert un concours de composition sur
projet rendu, toujours avec le mecanisme que nous
avons vu en seconde classe; esquisse en douze
heures, etude et mise au net a 1’atelier avec les
conseils du maitre, jugement simultane. Tous les
deux mois egalement, alternant avec ces concours,
il y a un concours sur simple esquisse, en douze
heures et en loges. Pour les projets, 1’objectif est
surtout la composition generale, par exemple ; une
maison de retraite pour des ecclesiastiques ; un
hotel de voyageurs ; une Bourse de Commerce ;
un Lycee ; une gare de chemin de fer ; un Pantheon ;
un theatre ; un cercle militaire ; une bibliotheque

1 4 i

publique, etc., ou des sujets partiels, mais impor-
tants, tels que ; Les nets d’une eglise voutee ; une
suite de salles de reception ; un passage voutd sous-
un monument ; le foyer public d’un grand theatre ;
une salle des seances publiques de 1’Institut, la
salle des Pas-perdus d’un Palais parlementaire, etc.

Pour les esquisses, il est propose des sujets assez
restreints, pouvant etre lestement trades dans les
douze heures concedees, soit partiels comme : le
pretoire d’une salle des assises ; la salle a manger
principale d’un grand hotel de voyageurs ; l’entr£e
d’une Ecole militaire ; une travee de galerie de
fetes; un fond de cour ; une antichambre ; une
voute en arc de cloitre . . . etc. ; soit de
petits ensembles, tels que : un refuge dans la
montagne ; un tombeau adosse ; une fontaine
isolee ; un cafe dans une ile ; une maison fores-
tiere; une cascade; un embarcadere de chemin de
fer funiculaire ; un puits public . . . etc.

Pour les projets, il est decerne des premieres et
secondes medailles ou des mentions ; pour les
esquisses, des secondes medailles, des premieres
et secondes mentions.

En dehors de ces concours fondamentaux, il
existe des concours speciaux, dus a des liberalites,
et auxquels des prix d’argent sont attaches : le
concours Rougevin, concours d’ajustement et de
decoration, qui se fait en six jours en loge d’apres
une esquisse ; le sujet en est toujours assez re-
streint pour permettre l’etude a grande echelle et
la manifestation des qualites de dessin. En voici
quelques sujets: le dessin d’une verriere; une
reliure d’art ; le dessin d’un tapis ; un trumeau
dans une galerie de palais . . . etc.

Le concours Godebeuf, qui consiste en l’etude
ddveloppde comme pour 1’execution, avec details,
et profils, d’une oeuvre architecturale de nature
spbeiale, telle que serrurerie, plomberie, marbrerie,
etc. Les projets sout executes dans les ateliers,
en quinze jours, d’apres les esquisses faites en loge
en douze heures. En voici quelques sujets : une
cloture de chapelle en marbrerie; une etude de
treillage autour d’un bosquet; un plafond en me¬
nuiserie de bois apparent, etc.

Ces concours sont sanctionnes par les memes
recompenses que ceux sur projets rendus.

Le concours Labarre, cree pour preparer les eleves
au concours du grand prix ; e’est une esquisse faite
en trois jours sur un sujet de grande composition.

Le concours du prix de reconnaissance des
Archiiectes Americains, concours de composition,
toujours important.

Enfin, les eleves de premiere classe prennent
part a des concours sur 1’histoire de l’architecture
(medailles et mentions) ainsi qu’a des concours de
figure dessinee d’apres nature ou d’apres l’antique,
et de modelage d’apres l’ornement (medailles et
mentions.)

VOL. xiv. — M

Architectural Education.

142

Pour la comparabilite des points, il est attribue :

a une premiere medaille - 3 valeurs

a une seconde ,, 2 ,,

a une ie mention 1 ,,

a une 2e \

En dehors des cours dont il a ete parle plus haut,
il est encore fait a l’Ecole des Beaux-arts, divers
cours qui ne sont pas affectes specialement a l’une
des classes :

ie. Le cours de theorie de l’architecture ; il y
est parle d’abord des elements de l'architecture,
tels que murs, baies, portiques, plafonds, voutes,
escaliers, etc., de la raison d’etre des exemples les
plus celebres, de la pensee qui a pu guider leurs
auteurs ; puis des elements de la composition dans
l’habitation, dans les edifices d’enseignement et
d’instruction publique, dans les edifices adminis¬
trates, judiciaires, hospitaliers, d’utilite publique;
dans l’architecture religieuse, funeraire, etc. Ce
cours ne comporte pas de prescriptions, et doit au
contraire laisser intacte la liberte de conseil qui
appartient a chaque maitre dans son atelier ; c’est
1’ expose devant les eleves de ce qu’est a ce jour le
patrimoine de l'architecture en France et a
l’etranger ; on pourrait aussi bien l’appeler cours
d’architecture comparee.

C’est le professeur de theorie qui est charge de
la redaction des programmes des concours d’archi-
tecture.

2e. Le cours d’histoire de l’architecture. Son
titre dispense de toute explication.

3e. Le cours d’architecture frangaise: — Ce cours
traite aussi de l’histoire de l’architecture, mais
specialement de l’architecture francaise, et prepare
plus directement les eleves aux travaux de restaura-
tions dont ils pourront etre charges.

qe. Le cours de physique et chimie. Pour une
partie (chimie des couleurs) ce cours s’adresse aux
peintres ; mais il est surtout destine aux archi-
tectes, a qui il enseigne :

La pesanteur et l’hydrostatique ; pressions,
densites, etc. ; la chaleur, dilatations, chauffage,
ventilation, hygiene en general ; l’acoustique et
l’optique; l’electricite et le magnetisme, courants,
lumiere, force, etc. ; la chimie dans ses rapports
avec l’architecture; des notions de geologie.

5e. Le cours de legislation du batiment; con-
trats et marches, responsabilite, expertises, etc. ;
rapports du proprietaire avec 1’architecte et les
ouvriers ; lois du voisinage ; servitudes, mitoyen-
netes, etc. ; distinction des biens ; police des con¬
structions; voirie urbaine; legislation des travaux.

Enfin, les eleves architectes peuvent suivre des
cours qui s’adressent aux deux sections (peinture —
sculpture — architecture), Ces cours sont : littera-
ture — histoire generale — histoire de l’art —
archeologie. L’enseignement dispose d’ailleurs

d'une galerie de modeles et d’une bibliotheque
ouverte aux eleves dans la journee et le soir.

Yoyons maintenant la sanction de toutes les
etudes. On voit que l’emulation constante en est
l ame, et certes la premiere de toutes les consecra¬
tions est le talent acquis. Mais les hommes out
besoin de titres positifs. Pour les etudes de
seconde classe, c’est le passage en premiere classe,
et deja le titre est d’ une reelle valeur ; pour les
eleves de premiere, c’est le diplorne d’architecte.

Lorsq’un eleve a obtenu en premiere classe
dix valeurs sur les concours d’architecture, et au
moins une valeur dans les concours d’histoire de
l’architecture, de dessin et de modelage, il a le
droit de se presenter aux epreuves du diplorne. Pour
cela, il propose un sujet de son choix, qui est soumis
a l’acceptation d’une commission speciale ; puis,
sans delai de temps, il execute le travail resultant
de son programme, travail generalement con¬
siderable. Deux fois par an au moins, il s’ouvre
une session de diplorne. Le candidat doit produire
outre son projet un devis descriptif, et d’autre
part une attestation comme quoi il a suivi pendant
une annee au moins des travaux pratiques.

Son projet, etudie comme pour 1’execution, est
soumis a une commission qui interroge l’auteur
devant son propre travail ; d’autre part le can¬
didat doit subir un examen de physique et chimie,
et un examen de legislation. Cet ensemble
d’epreuves est comparable, on le voit, aux soute-
nances de theses qui conduisent au doctorat dans
les Facultes. Il peut y avoir actuellement en France
de sept a huit cents architectes ainsi diplomas.

Mais il est impossible de ne pas parler ici du
concours du Grand Prix de Rome. Ce concours
n’appartient pas a l'Ecole des Beaux-arts, mais
a I'lnstitut de France ; en fait, c’est toujours un
concours entre les meilleurs bleves de l’Ecole.
Legalement toutefois il est accessible a tout
frangais, non marie, agb de 16 a 30 ans. Un
premier concours, de douze heures, est ouvert a
quiconque s’y fait inscrire ; on y fait une btude
rapide et a grande echelled’un sujet monumental,
tel que la porte d’entree d’un Palais de Justice,
etc. Le jury, composb ici de la Section d’Archi-
tecture de l’Academie des Beaux-arts et de
quatre jures supplementaires, choisit les vingt
meilleures esquisses ; leurs auteurs iront com¬
pleter, avec ceux qui de par leurs succes et leurs
titres anterieurs sont exemptes de ce premier essai,
le nombre de soixante fixb pour les concurrents
a l’admission au concours definitif. En vingt
quatre heures ininterrompues, ces soixante con¬
currents font une grande esquisse de composition
generale, dont le sujet sera toujours considerable,
par exemple un Palais de Justice complet. Apres
quoi le meme jury en choisit dix qui feront, en
quatre mois, sur un nouveau programme de

Books .

143

grande composition, le concours definitif. II
peut etre ddcerne le grand prix, un premier et un
deuxieme seconds prix. Le grand prix assure au
titulaire le sejour pendant quatre ans a Rome, a
la Villa Medicis, a charge d’accomplissement des
obligations reglementaires.

Ainsi, tandis que chaque annee avec la double
session d’admission, il entre go frangais a l’Ecole
des Beaux-arts, chaque annde il en sort un avec
le grand-prix, toujours a la suite de longues et
brillantes etudes. Cela suffit a indiquer la haute
valeur de cette recompense, dont le prix est encore
singulierement augmente par la perspective de
quatre annees a passer au milieu de camarades
dans une maison consacree aux arts a Rome, et
aussi dans toute 1’Italie, en Grece, en Orient, sans
autre souci que celui des etudes, et loin des con¬
tacts deprimants et des ambiances tyranniques,
dans la liberte et dans la dignite.

Aussi, le prestige de ces grandes epreuves est-
il immense sur tout ce qui parmi nos eleves a de
l’ardeur et du feu sacre. Et par la est entretenu
chez tous un ideal eleve, une ambition feconde.
Pour un heureux, il y a des centaines d’efforts ;
les hautes aspirations ont un but nettement
visible, et ce concours n’a pas seulement permis
au laureat tout ce qu’il en attendait ; il a cree chez
tous 1’ardeur et la volonte, il a rendu plus forts,
beaucoup plus forts, ceux meme qui n’ont pu
parvenir jusqu’au but. Si un tel concours devait
disparaitre, la valeur generale de 1’enseignement
artistique en France, et de l’architecture en par¬
ticular, subirait une depression incalculable.

Voila done une rapide esquisse de l’enseigne-
ment de 1’architecture en France. Trois elements
en assurent le fonctionnement : dans 1’Ecole des

Beaux-arts, etablissement de l’Etat, l’enseigne-
ment didactique des sciences et de ce qui dans les
arts peut etreenseigne d’une fagon certaine, comme
le dessin, le modelage, l’histoire ; dans cette meme
Ecole, consideree comme un grand gymnase rap-
prochant, comparant et jugeant les produits de
chaque enseignement particulier, l’organisation
de concours ininterrompus, la redaction des pro¬
grammes, les jugements; ici, e’est done le jury
de concours qui a Taction principale — action
encore enseignante — enfin, le rouage essentiel,
la methode meme de l’enseignement artistique, le
maitre dans son atelier, librement choisi par ses
eleves, libre de les garder ou de s’en separer, con-
seiller quotidien, confident attentif, indulgent au
besoin, severe s’il le faut : un ami plus age, et qui
s’il n’etait pas un ami de ses eleves serait indigne
d’etre leur maitre. L’Ecole pourrait disparaitre
au moins dans son enseignement, on y supplierait
au besoin; mais si l’enseignement personnel des
maitres ou comme on dit des patrons chacun dans
son atelier venait a se tarir ; si le rapprochement
de ces enseignements dans les concours communs
etait supplime, il ne resterait rien, rien que
quelques cours sans auditeurs.

Telle est cette organisation qui s’est faite lente-
ment, que personne sans doute n’aurait congue
tout d’une piece, mais qui moyennant une mise au
point de 1’enseignement et des programmes suivant
la marche des idees contemporaines, repond a
toutes les exigences d’etudes. Et ce n’est pas la
de la pure abstraction theorique : s’il est vrai que
1’arbre doive etre juge par ses fruits, il semble bien
que la valeur generale de ceux qui ont suivi ces
etudes dans leurcomplet developpement demontre
bien la valeur de la methode qui les a dirigees.

Books.

jyj ODERN SCHOOL BUILDINGS.

“ Modern School Buildings, Elementary and Secondary.” By
Felix Clay, B.A., Architect. Price, 25s. net. London: B. T.
Batsford, 94, High Holborn.

Considering the importance of the subject the
published literature on school planning is very defi¬
cient. Mr. Robson’s work published as long ago as
1874, deals almost exclusively with Board Schools.
Mr. Clay, while devoting part of his space to elemen¬
tary schools, treats more especially secondary school
building. His book is an eminently practical one,
illustrated by actually executed examples, in all
of which a serious attempt has been made to meet
numerous complicated and novel requirements.

It sounds a mere truism to say, as Mr. Clay does
in his introduction, that “ as the organization of a
school depends principally on the subjects taught in
it, and the methods of classification, &c., adopted for
the purpose, so it happens that the plan of a school
comes ultimately to be governed to a large extent by

the curriculum,” but it requires a very slight ac¬
quaintance with school buildings to see how often
this self-evident fact has been overlooked. The plan
of most of the private boarding schools of thirty or
forty years ago was completely innocent of arrange¬
ment. The school buildings generally consisted of a
large dwelling-house, not too well planned as an
ordinary residence, on to which was tacked at hap¬
hazard one big “schoolroom.” In this room the
whole life of the place centred. In school time the
masters gathered their classes round them, and the
bewildered pupils’ ears were assailed by fragments of
four or five lessons at a time, and anything like really
serious teaching was almost impossible.

Mr. Clay shows how great a change a few years
have brought about. New methods of teaching have
made scientific planning imperative, and our schools
are now equipped with buildings the necessity for
which was undreamt of a generation ago. Starting
with a general survey of the subject, touching lightly

144

Corre spoil d en ce.

on the origin and growth of schools in England, and
glancing at the methods and organization in vogue on
the Continent and in America, the author contrives to
give a clear idea of what is to be aimed at in planning
a good school building. The details that go to make
up the general plan are then discussed at length, and
not until these have been assimilated are we intro¬
duced to the plans as a whole. By adopting this
method of leading up to the complete building by
successive steps, it is possible to see, almost at a
glance, how far the plans illustrated are adequate for
their purpose. The American plans given may not

perhaps be “sample ” selections. The State Normal
School at Salem, U.S.A., for instance, shows far less
care than some of the English examples, an examina¬
tion of which should be sufficient to convince us that,
if our educational system is less organised than that
of other countries, we can, at any rate, more than hold
our own in planning our school buildings.

Mr. Clay’s book is full of valuable information
carefully arranged, and he is to be congratulated on
the production of a work which should at once take
rank as the standard authority on the subject.

Ernest Newton.

Correspondence.

EXETER CATHEDRAL.

To the Editorial Committee of The Architectural
Review.

Gentlemen,

Referring to Professor Lethaby’s interesting
articles in your March and May issues on this subject,
may I be allowed to draw attention to a point in
connection with the nave piers, which tvas suggested
to me on seeing Mr. Lethaby’s plan published in the
second paper. I would particularly draw attention to
the convexity of the four sides suggesting a refine¬
ment of design corresponding to the entasis of a
column or spire, also to the triple group of shafts at
each angle with the single shaft midway on each face.
Whether, in reference to the former of these points
any such like peculiarity exists at Winchester, I am
unable to say.

Yours, etc.,

Robert F. Hodges.

heightened church. (Since writing the above I find that Britton
states ‘ That the roof of the new church was raised consider¬
ably higher than that of the old one is evident from the ancient
Norman windows and other ornamental work which may be seen
on each tower between the present vaulting and the roof.’) ”

Mr. G. J. F. Hookway has furnished a measured drawing
illustrating the point in question, which is subjoined.

JH'DvatiHh

Note. — The arcading situate above the transept vaulting shows that the roof was.
raised considerably higher than that of the Norman building.

Pl£M.

f>CCTldH.

DETAILS PIER.

\L _ J]

Note. — In Professor Lethaby's second paper on Exeter Cathe¬
dral, the author, in dealing with the former Norman Church,
said : —

“ Even for the height indications might probably be found on
the inner faces of the towers as seen in the roof-spaces of the

‘l , t i i i !i 4 i nu - 1 - tmT

EXETER CATHEDRAL. DETAILS OF WALL ARCADE,
SOUTH WALL, S. PAUL’S TOWER.

MEASURED AND DRAWN BY G. J. F. HOOKWAY.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVIEW, NOVEMBER,
1903, VOLUME XIV.
NO. 84

WELBURN HALL, YORKS. RECONSTRUCTION. THE TERRACE,
SOUTH FRONT. WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT. (See page 159.)

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

■47

VIEW OF MANTUA FROM THE EAST, ACROSS THE LAGOON.

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

n. 1492. ob. 1546.

At Raphael’s death Giulio Romano, with
Giovanni il Fattore, was left charged with the com¬
pletion of the deceased painter’s pictures, frescoes
and other engagements, and was by common con¬
sent accepted in the world of art as the foremost
of Raphael’s pupils. As such he was invited to
the Court at Mantua, and there with undimmed
reputation he spent the rest of his not long life
(54 years). In the chronicles of his day he bulked
largely.

Vasari, talking of men on whom were show¬
ered unusually profuse and enviable gifts, says :
“ Conspicuously amongst such was dowered
by nature Giulio Romano, who could truly be
called the heir of that most winning master
Raphael, not only as a man by the graciousness
of his manners and as a painter by his pictures,
but beyond this, as the wonderful structures built
by him show, both at Rome and at Mantua,
which buildings seem rather houses of the gods
made for examples to men than the habitations of

men.”0 And further, accounting for his residence
away from Rome, “ Giulio being, on account of
his supreme qualities, renowned as the best artist
in Italy, now that Raphael was dead, Count Bal-
dassare Castiglione,” their common friend, in¬
troduced him in 1524 to the Duke.f Cellini, en
route for France in 1528, stepped aside to visit
him in Mantua. “ After a day or so I went and
called upon Messer Julio Romano, the far-famed
painter, a great friend of mine. Julio was most
delighted to see me, and took it mighty ill that I
hadn’t come and quartered myself in his house.
He was quite the great man in the place, and was
carrying out a work for the Duke just beyond one
of the gates of Mantua at a spot called il T. This
building was of great size, and as remarkable per¬
haps as has ever been seen.”! Michael Angelo —
in the conversations reported by Francisco d’Ol-
landa (a Portuguese miniature painter) — asked to

* Vasari, “Life of Giulio Romano.” 1st edition.

f Ibid. | “ Vita di Benvenuto Cellini.”

VOL. xiv. — n 2

*48

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

enumerate the serious and important work at that
time being done, instances Pippi’s work. “ But
of the things outside the city (Rome) the Vigna
(Villa Madama) begun by Pope Clement VII., at
the foot of Monte Mario, is most worth seeing ;
it is ornamented by the fine painting and sculp¬
ture of Raphael and Julius, where the giant lies
sleeping whose feet the satyrs are measuring with
shepherds' crooks.”* . . . “ So, too, the Palace

of the Duke of Mantua, where Andrea (Mantegna)
painted the Triumph of Caius Caesar, is noble;
but more so still is the work of the Stable (Pal¬
azzo del T) painted by Julius, a pupil of Raphael,
who now flourishes in Mantua.”4 As Michael
Angelo does not give either a long catalogue of
works, nor mention many names, the praise is so
much the more valuable.

In the matter of art, of engineering, and the
civil life at Mantua, Pippi was the autocrat, nay
despot even, and Mantua was, and is, called “ the
city of Giulio Romano.” He built palaces and
houses, repaired the river dykes, restored bridges,
determined the new streets, designed the city
slaughter-house, made plans (which were carried
out in part after his death) for the remodelling of
the Cathedral, arranged the pageantry of the
street shows, made cartoons for tapestry and
sketches for jewellery — and, though besought and
tempted to leave Mantua and enrich other towns
with specimens of his art, he was too much prized
to be spared, and remained in the city of his
adoption till his death.

Francis I. congratulated himself that he was
able to count amongst the best of his imported
artists some of Giulio Romano’s pupils. The
Duke Federigo, on his arrival at Mantua, gave
him his choicest horse and remained his fast friend
to the close of his life. His successor (Francesco
Gonzaga) continued the friendly intimacy. Years
afterwards, when Rubens was Court painter at
Mantua (1600-1608), Romano's fame was para¬
mount and his influence still vital.

And yet, at the present time of writing, his
fame, if it bulks at all, shows as some wind-blown
imposture, so little can it now fill out the wide
areas of contemporary appreciation. How comes
it that his monument, that was to be more lasting
than bronze, has been so ravaged by the tooth of
the great eater of things that the lay world hardly
knows that it exists, or where it is to be found ?
What were the achievements on which his repu¬
tation rested ? He would have said his pictures,
his frescoes, his sculpture, and his architecture.
But there was another ingredient in the series,
that gave lustre and attractiveness to his group
of talents, namely, his personal charm for his

* “ Michael Angelo Buonarroti.” By Chas. Holroyd. Duck¬
worth and Co. 1903. f Ibid.

superiors and such of his equals as were not
rivals. I imagine that pupils left him readily.
Cellini describes an encounter with Giulio at
Mantua in very guarded language and declined
any invitation to make a permanent stay there.
He knew his man — had known him in the days
gone by at Rome. Probably Giulio claimed moie
originality than he was entitled to; behind him
one sees Raphael ; and, a little to the side of
Raphael (if I may so put it), Michael Angelo.

No art advanced in growth under his hand,
except perhaps that of architecture ; but the archi¬
tectural genesis of the Palazzo delTe* is obscure.
Its obvious and undoubted progenitor is the Villa
Madama at Rome. The authorship of the design (of
the Villa) was not Romano’s. Vasari states in his
life of Raphael that Raphael was the architect. Fur¬
ther evidence is extant that Antonio da San Gallo
was consulted by Cardinal Medici (Clement VII.)
and that he executed important parts of it.

During the Pontificate of Adrian VI. (1521-
1523) the works stood in abeyance, to be resumed
when the cardinal became Pope. Raphael died
in 1520. For some time before his death he and
Antonio da San Gallo had been joint architects
to the church of St. Peter. Clement VII. took
up the completion of his suburban villa and gave
(Vasari says) the entire charge of the work to
Giulio (“ e diede di tutto il carico a Giulio ”). At
this time San Gallo was full of commissions —
work at the Vatican, at Parma, at Piacenza, etc.,
and we may suppose that the building as we see
it owes its clothing, and rather more, to Giulio
Romano. Doubtless he must have heard from
Raphael’s own lips the kind of incomparable
mansion the master was going to make it, and
fertile ideas sank deep in the retentive memory of
Pippi. The twisted columns of the Cortile della
Cavallerizza in the Ducal Palace hark back to
Raphael’s tapestry cartoons.

Giulio served his apprenticeship to the antique ;
he sketched, and measured, and collected anti¬
quities ; with the other pupils of Raphael he
rediscovered the process of stucco working and
encrusted his panels with “ grotesques ” in imi¬
tation of the ancient Romans. And he taught
his own pupils this dainty form of decoration.
Primaticcio came from Bologna to study under
Pippi at Mantua, and he learnt so ably that
amongst all the young men who then worked at
the Palazzo del Te he was considered the best.
Most of the painters were paid 22 soldi daily,
a few less, but Primaticcio alone got 34. From
Mantua he went to the French king’s court, and
we come across him, working at Fontainebleau,
in Cellini’s pages. Owing to his opportunities,

* “Te” is said to be contracted from Tejetto, a sluiceway or
ranal.

Giulio Romano at Mantua

J49

THE TOURNAMENT YARD (CAVALLERIZZA) IN THE DUCAL PALACE.

PALAZZO DEL TE. GARDEN FRONT.

[ 5°

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

PALAZZO DEL TE. INTERNAL COURTYARD.

PALAZZO DEL TE.

Giulio Romano at Mantua

PALAZZO DEL TE. ATRIUM OPENING ON TO THE GARDEN. PALAZZO DEL TE. ATRIUM LOOKING ON TO THE GARDEN.

Giulio Romano at ManUia.

PALAZZO DEL TF.. ROOM IN THE CASINO DELLA GROTTA

and due to his method of handling “ gli
stucchi,” Giulio Romano was able to popularise
this form of decorative art, and the Italian
craftsman has been a practitioner in these wares
ever since.

Robert Adam must have marked and remem¬
bered this “Pompeian” (as we should call it)
decoration, and when reproducing the style in
England, he sent to Italy for his workmen. Flax-
man must have noted the capabilities of this
material, and its adaptability to his designs for
jasper ware that he was making for Wedgwood.
But Giulio's architecture does not depend upon
its stucco enrichments. The Palazzo del Te,
although painter’s architecture — for there is no
constructive sense whatever in it, nor, so far as I
can see, in any of his buildings — surprises one by
an unlooked-for delicacy of feeling. I had ex¬
pected something much more turgid and bombas¬
tic, and indeed the frescoes within amply fill out
and deserve those epithets. The facades of the
courtyards are quiet, the loggia sensitively refined ;
the outlook on the garden, with the colonnaded
semicircle closing the vista, must have been very
beautiful ; the whole arrangement looks broad
and spacious, and yet the actual sizes are not
great. It was built to be a spectacle, a pleasure

house, a garden pavilion and dining-room, and a
certain riot and extravagance of fancy would not
have been surprising. It is dignified and restrained.
Its architecture stretches out a hand to the past
and a hand to the future ; it recalls the Belvidere
of the Vatican, and the Villa Maser of Palladio.
Architecturally it exhibits the exhaustion of Bra-
mante’s art. That lofty spirit had now been
codified, formulated, and indexed up, and could
be squeezed out upon a painter’s palette, or
thumbed out in the sculptor’s modelling clay.
But there was a kick in it still, and the Palazzo
del Te had life enough to set the model of ver¬
nacular architecture, to illustrate the kind of
building any gentleman could and should have.
With the frescoes inside we get no forwarder.
The treatment of Gonzaga’s horses, though a good
idea, is dreadfully inept. The horses are standing
insecurely on most inadequate ledges; the im¬
pression — with respect be it spoken — is like the
fisherman’s stuffed trout over the doorcase. The
treatment of the Cupid and Psyche myth is far
more unpleasing than that in the Farnesina,
whose chief function is to keep alive and poignant
the regret that the story should have been
painted by the hands of his pupils and not by
Raphael. It is true that in Mantua the frescoes

Ginlio Romano at Mantua. 153

PALAZZO DEL TF„ THE FAVOURITE HORSES OF DUKE FREDERICK GONZAGA.

PALAZZO DEL TE. THE STORY OF CUPID AND PSYCHE.

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

have been defaced by time, neglect, and wanton
injury, and then destroyed by repainting ; still, the
outlines are, in the gross, retained, and there are
engravings extant to show what the originals were
like. What was done in the Palazzo del Te had
already been better done elsewhere. In the matter
of violent foreshortening, in annihilating the wall's
surface, and in making the spectator fancy he is
gazing into the open and up into the sky, the
works still extant of Mantegna in the Camera degli
Sposi are superior. Vasari talks of the remark¬
able vraisemblance of Giulio's painting, and partly
one must take it on trust, and partly one must
recognise that the standard of vraisemblance
changes with each different age. In the matter
of landscapes and accessories this is more easily
noticed. All painting is a representation by
conventions, and the value and power of these
conventions change with the temper of the age.
The clouds on which the angels stand, the land¬
scape, the trees, etc., of, say, Benozzo Gozzoli’s
fresco in the Riccardi Chapel at Florence, seemed
to his spectators the real things. P'or eyes
unaccustomed to closer observation, those elemen¬
tary symbols of the subjects to be represented had
the exactness and conviction that photography in
colours would have for the modern. Despite,

then, their appearance to a modern eye, we may
suppose that Giulio’s frescoes looked very real to
the contemporary. But this does not lessen
their inferiority to the works they were echoes of.
The conventions, if they are to carry conviction,
must be sincere. Careless or bad drawing cannot
construct an illusion. Partly from this quantity
of bad drawing, and partly from what seem to me
errors in the matter of scale — I will give an
instance later on — I take it that Giulio Romano
rarely did the actual work you see, that he rarely
made full-sized cartoons, but that most of his
work was done by his pupils from sketches.
There are sufficient examples extant of his work
to show that he could draw and colour. But by
the time that the Palazzo del Te was roofed
in, Giulio’s position in Mantua was assured ; his
hands were over full of work, and he was ever
ready to oblige with a sketch for any imaginable
thing. I imagine him a man of varied pleasures,
and somewhat lazy after the first inception of an
undertaking. He was willing to make things do.
His masters were in a hurry. By rights he ought
to have done this himself0 ; after all, the pupil’s

* “ The work was afterwards almost wholly retouched by
Giulio, whence it is very much as it might have been had it been
entirely executed with h's own hand.” — Vasari, G. R.

PALAZZO DELLA GIUSTIZ1A, MANTUA.

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

1 5 5

MANTUA. GIULIO ROMANO’S OWN HOUSF.

performance was wonderful for so young a man,
and the pleasure house was a fantasia, not a
serious monument. As regards errors of scale,
let us take the Hall of the Giants. The idea is
good, and a small sketch in illustration of it would
look excellently well. The sketch is magnified up
to the required size to fill the spaces of the room,
but the impressiveness of the sketch is gone. The
geology of the sketch might pass muster on so
small a scale; in full size it is unconvincing.
The giants are to be slain and buried by the ruin
of a shattered world, and the fragments of this
awful cataclysm have the substance and texture
of those harmless loaves and other missiles with
which the clown in the pantomime pelts the
policeman and the pantaloon. Here, no doubt,
the spirit of the age, more learned in rock cleavage
than our ancestors, discovers a bathos and short¬
coming undetected by them. Nor does the mere
enlargement of brutal faces add to their horror ; an
equal number of crocodiles gulphed in mud would
be more tragic, because more realisable. Take
again the Palazzo della Giustizia, where Giulio
Romano figures as sculptor. Greatherminal figures
of monsters stand as pilasters on its fagade, and
support, as caryatids, the cornice of the roof. It
is impossible not to feel there has been an error
in scale. The original^ sketch in clay probably

looked very well, was enthusiastically approved,
and handed over to the sculptor pupil to be
realised. But the figures are at least twice too
large. At their present greatness they are bestial
and bloated ; there is no strike or passion in
them. Any street boy could be Jack the Giant-
killer of such helpless, imbecile carcases as they.
What was suggestive of ability, malice, and cun¬
ning in the small sketch, has disappeared from
these overgrown faces in the elaboration, and the
invention that was sufficient for the clay was
unable to fill out the stucco actuality. The treat¬
ment of the imitation stone-work, probably a
mere indication in the sketch, is very careful and
refined ; here Giulio was drawing on his past
experience and observation, and it accords ill (in
scale) with the lumbering monstrosities which it
supports.

Across the street, almost facing this Palace, is
the house that Giulio Romano built for himself.
Vasari describes it as “ una facciata fantastica,
tutta lavorata di stucchi coloriti ” ; it has been
yellow-washed to uniformity now. The fagade
has been widened with an additional bay since he
left it, and the interior arrangements have been
greatly altered. There is a fine tranquillity about
the design, and the surface treatment reveals great
consideration and feeling. Possibly this is the

Gut, lio Romano at Mantua.

true Giulio — not obliged by the great people com¬
missioning him, or thinking it necessary for his
reputation to “show off”; at any rate, here is a
bit of architectural composition that lingers in the
memory with a quiet charm, as of something in
its modest way perfect. It is quite a small affair,
little over thirty feet from pavement to underside
of cornice, and yet the element of size does not
enter into the recollection, as Dance found it,
when composing his front for the prison at New¬
gate. The Cathedral again, with its double aisles
and domed chapels, shows ability, not genius; the
interior is effective in its way, the design is quiet
and steady, the detail refined and rather lifeless,
and there is a strong afternoon or after-lunch feel¬
ing throughout. Sir Wm. Chambers must have
made an attentive stay at Mantua.

As a sculptor Giulio Romano has left little
evidence of his handiwork ; it is just conceivable
that he recognised there his limitations. The
monument to the Count of Castelvetro in the
Cathedral at Modena is stark naught, and the
one in Sant’ Andrea at Mantua would gain no
distinction for itself amongst the mortuary sculp¬
ture in the Euston Road.

As SEdile of the city, no one durst wag finger
or tongue against him; no building was permitted
without his approval of the project, “ and so much
pleasure did he find in adorning and embellishing
that city, that whereas he had first found it
buried in mud, with the streets full of foetid water,
and even the houses sometimes scarcely habitable
from the same cause, he brought the whole to
such a condition that it is now dry, healthy, and
agreeable ; all which is attributable to the labours
of Giulio Romano.” The houses he built in the
neighbourhood of Mantua have not survived the
turbulence of the later centuries ; the advance in
military science has swallowed up his military en¬
gineering, the ever higher banked Po has diverted
or obliterated his sluices and dykes, but the
fame that he got as military and civil engineer
must have been honestly won and desperately
proved, although the Gonzagas of his day managed
skilfully to fend off war from their own country.
As festival architect and director we have Vasari’s
account : “ When the Emperor Charles V. ar¬
rived in Mantua (1530), Giulio made many magni¬
ficent preparations for his reception by order of
the Duke; these consisted of arches, perspective
scenes for dramatic representations, and various
matters of a similar kind, in the invention of which
Giulio Romano never had his equal ; for never was
there any man who, in the arrangement of mas¬
querades, or the preparation of extraordinary
habiliments for jousts, festivals, and tournaments,
displayed fancy and variety of resource such as he
possessed. This was acknowledged with aston¬

ishment and admiration at the time by the Em¬
peror and by as man}7 other persons as were pre¬
sent.”

As to his bric-a-brac, it is but a memory.
His designs, for anything, were produced, Vasari
says, “ in loads,” and were eagerly reproduced by
engravers in Italy, Flanders, and in France.
\ou may find him in a plate from Gubbio, a
tapestry from the Flemings, on any surface, in
fact, where a luxurious display of limbs may be
thrown; the riot of limbs, indeed, is the real sub¬
ject of the design, so that it takes a practised eye
to detect, by some obscure treacherous symbol,
that the story comes from the Old Testament and
not from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. We are in the
world of facile dexterity, where the hand is asking
the head for employment, and is restlessly scoring
paper till the head replies, whilst the heart, securely
snug in the fat of its own degeneration, has onlyr
an amused smile at the earnestness of the two
collaborators.

In the Giulio Romanesque architecture the head
still controls the hand, a pride of heart inflames
the designer, and a gaiety of heart (not careless)
floats the spectator past the moral shortcomings,
the poor materials in masquerade, the faulty
construction, the tawdry and vain desire of his
patrons (tawdry and vain because there was
no longer any sincerity in it, but merely an
affectation of culture) to have persons and events
represented in terms of the Augustan age re¬
called. Moreover, there was a modicum of real
enduring worth, of the imaginative kind, in his
work, which has made it serviceable and fruit¬
ful in the after years. Over the schemes of
poetic genius with which Raphael was charged,
many must have been the discussions between
master and pupil, and Giulio arose with a
tuck or so of the prophet's mantle. These he
enlarged in the course of his practice, and made
them almost his own. In fresco work and paint
the cloth hung heavy on him — he was a worse
Raphael at every point — to our eyes more flag¬
rantly inferior than to those of his contemporaries ;
but in architecture he was able to take his scraps
of the robe and piece them out into a garment
that has sheltered and warmed the artist’s fire in
many a practitioner since. Behind Somerset
House you may see Giulio Romano, and behind
Newgate (as it stood). You may look in many
an “ Adam ” House (say in Portland Place), where
you will find Primaticcio busy under Pippi’s
direction. A century and a half ago Mantua was
as much a Mecca as Vicenza, though the colder
blood of the precisian Palladio suited better, for
the most part, the timid ignorance of an age self-
conscious and fearful of committing that inex¬
cusable blunder — a solecism. Protected and for-

Giulio Romano at Mantua.

157

tified by the stiff close stays of Palladian rectitude,
a man could go about securely, facing the slings
and arrows of offensive criticism ; whereas it re¬
quired a knowledge of and actual feeling for the
poetry of architecture to meet the questioners of
Raphaelesque or Mantovan erections. Moreover,
the world now is too full for the detached existences
of those days ; the employer is burdened with too
many responsibilities, too many duties, and too
serious an appreciation of them, to contemplate
pavilions of festival architecture, a street front
that might be called a pageant, or a country
house where Architecture herself should be one
of his visitors and become one of his companions.
For a man now to avow such an intention would
be to advertise his retirement from real and active
life, and his subsidence into the back-water class,
like the collectors of gems or other such dormice
— abdication, for one endowed with ambition and
wealth, from what he would hold as his honour¬
able engagements. The equivalent, at the present
day, of the Palazzo del Te is the pleasure yacht,
and the moral misgivings of its commission are
salved by pretexts of original research, necessity
from ill-health, and so forth. Modern “ model ”
stables are gutted by considerations of hygiene,
and restricted by the view that the horse and not

its owner is the justification of the buildings.
The actual stables at the Palazzo del Te are no
more spacious or magnificent than at an ordin¬
ary cavalry barracks or tram-car terminus, though
they housed horses valued at their weight in gold.
In Mantua there are no Gonzagas now: but for
the painters’ and architects’ handicraft there
would be no mention of their names except in the
historian's pages. They pulled their city about
their ears in the terrible sack of Mantua (1630),
and were at last ejected from the place, Ferdi¬
nand Carlo being deposed in 1708 by the Emperor
for “felony.” The names that the Mincio mur¬
murs as it laps the city walls and the bases of its
palaces, as its plashes through the fountains
and ripples through the lagoons, are Virgil, Sor-
dello, and Giulio Romano. The pilgrim at the
shrine of the Theban maid — the witch Manto —
may evoke also the names of Dante and Mantegna
from out a lurid background of memorable names
and scenes; but Mantua is “the city of Giulio
Romano” of which “ Duke Virgil” is lord, and
where dwelt that Lombard poet whom Dante
beheld in Purgatory, and who leaped to the
heart of Virgil when he named Mantua : “ O

Mantovan, I am Sordello, of thine own land.”

Halsey Ricardo.

PALAZZO DEI. TE. POLYPHEMUS.

Current A rchitecture

WELBURN HALL, YORKSHIRE: RECONSTRUCTION AND ADDITIONS, FROM THE NORTHEAST.
WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT.

Ctirrent A rchitecturc

1 59

WELBURN HALL, YORKS. THE LOGGIA. WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT.

Photo : T. Lewis.

Current Architecture.

Welburn Hall, Yorkshire. — This house
is situate between Helmsley and Kirbymoorside,
in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Until tku
Reformation it belonged to the Monks of Rievaulx
Abbey. In 1610, what was then called the
“ New Wing,” was added. It is the only portion
of old work now remaining, and contains the
kitchens and offices with gallery, and with-drawing
room, etc., over, and the long gallery the full
length of the roof. In 1890 the estate was pur¬
chased by Miss Clarke, who at once commissioned
Mr. Walter Brierley to repair and enlarge the
house for her. By a curious coincidence the
architect had measured and drawn it for the pur¬
pose of study several years before. The buildings
were in a ruinous condition having been unoccu¬
pied, except as a cattle shed, etc., for over eighty

years. The old timber-built portion was in such
a ruinous condition that rebuilding was the only
course open, and as so little of the original work
remained, to have built it up again of timber
would only have been a surmise of the original.
It was deemed advisable, therefore, that it should
be built of stone, like the Elizabethan wing.
Miss Clarke has since sold the estate to Mr. J.
Shaw of Dorrington Hall, Pontefract, and further
additions in the way of stables, servants’ wing,
gate-house, etc., have been made. The new
buildings are of local hammer-dressed stone
with chiselled quoins. The roofs are covered
with grey Colley Weston stone slates, which were
the nearest approach that could be obtained to
the old moor flags with which the old wing is
roofed.

Current A rchitecture.

160

BLAC K'SHCWS' ADDITIONS •
MATCH ET> WORK- SMCV3
ORIGINAL- BVILDING

WELBVLLN HALL nea.
KIRBYMOOfcSIDE

BLACK SMEWS ADDITIONS
MATCHED • WORK SHEWS
ORIGINAL BVIUDINQ-

WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture.

1 6 n

SECTION -THRO -HALL -AND- STAIRCASE

-H-

rEErr 10

60 FEET

SECTION THRO • HALL AND- LONG' GALLERY-

FEET 10. SO IO 20 30 to 50 so FEET

WELBURN HALL, YORKS. WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT.

VOL. XIV. — O

Current A rchitecture

162

WELBURN HALL, YORKS. THE OLD SUMMERHOUSE.

Photo : T. Lewis

Coleherne Court. — These buildings con¬
sist of double blocks of flats, one facing the street
and the other the gardens. The entrance is from
the street in all cases, and the blocks are con¬
nected by passages containing the lifts and stair¬
cases, serving four flats on each floor. The
blocks are built round three sides of an irregular
rectangle, which forms a private garden of nearly

two and a half acres, open to the south, for the
occupants of the flats. The materials employed
are red bricks and stone (both Portland and
Bath) ; grey slates. The garden elevation has
rough cart frieze, gables, and bay windows. The
owner is Mr. Henry Bailey, and the contractor,
Mr. T. W. Brown, of Hornsey. The architect is
Mr. Walter Cave.

Current A rckitecture.

163

O 2

WELBURN HALL, YORKS. RECONSTRUCTION AND ADDITIONS.

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH-WEST. WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture

164

WELBURN HALL, YORKS. RECONSTRUCTION AND ADDITIONS.
THE LONG GALLERY. WALTER H. BRIERLEY, ARCHITECT.

Current A rchitecture.

165

COLEHERNE COURT, EARL’S COURT. ELEVATION AT JUNCTION OF REDCLIFFE GARDENS
AND OLD BROMPTON ROAD. WALTER CAVE ARCHITECT.

No. 19, New Cavendish Street, London,
W. — This house stands on the south side of the
street between Harley Street and Portland Place,
and was erected on a site previously occupied
by a small house and a stable building. Conse¬
quently it was impossible to carry it above the
height attained, owing to difficulties of light and

air, etc. It belongs to a class of house which has
spi ung up rather frequently on the Howard de
Walden Estate, and is somewhat unfairly called a
“ Maisonette, for it will be seen by the plans that
very considerable accommodation is attained
owing to the length of the frontage (45 ft 6 in.
over all), a special feature being the planning of a

Current Architecture

1 66

COLEHERNE COURT, EARL’S COURT. ELEVATION TO
REDCLIFFE GARDENS. WALTER CAVE, ARCHITECT.

Photo : E. Dockree

Current A rchitecture

167

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COLEHERNE COURT, WEST BROMPTON.

VIEW FROM THE GARDEN. WALTER CAVE, ARCHITECT.

i 68

Ctirrent A rchitecture .

billiard room (24 ft. x iS ft.) in the basement,
which is entered immediately at the foot of the
back staircase and shut off from all the offices.
There are three sitting rooms on the ground floor,
and the rest of the space is devoted to bedrooms,
etc. It is built with red brick facings and Port¬
land stone dressings. The cove cornice is con¬
structed of tiles corbelled out, and finished with
Parian cement. The work was carried out by
Messrs. Dove Brothers, of Islington. The archi¬
tects are M essrs. E. B. Hoare and M. Wheeler.

Saint Nicolai Vicarage and Saint
Nicolai Dispensary, Svendborg, Denmark.
Magdahl Nielsen, Architect. — -These two
houses are situated in a small provincial town,
famous, however, for its beautiful surroundings.

The Dispensary is built of red hand-made bricks
and granite, with dark glazed tiles ior roofing.
The building, which, besides the dispensary, con¬
tains the offices of a bank, is otherwise arranged
on the flat system, predominant in Danish towns,
there being altogether five separate “flats/’ In
the basement are various laboratories, etc. A
little further down the newly laid-out thoroughfare
lies the vicarage, also built of red hand-made
bricks, but the tiles used for roofing are red. The
end facing the new thoroughfare will appear
somewhat bare, owing to there being no roadway
when the house was built. In all probability a
bay window will be added here. The architect,
Mr. Magdahl Nielsen, has been independent enough
to give more space than is generally allowed in
Danish houses.

Sanlens.

COLEHERNE COURT. DETAIL OF PLAN
AT “A:’ ON FIRST FLOOR, SHOWING
FOUR FLATS. SEE BLOCK PLAN.
WALTER CAVE, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture.

169

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BASEMENT

SCALE 1..T 1' t * ? r -

sTOF FEET.

19, NEW CAVENDISH STREET, W.

E. B. HOARE AND M. WHEELER, ARCHITECTS.

I/O

Current A rchitecture

Photo : E. Dockrce

19, NEW CAVENDISH STREET, W.

E. B. HOARE AND M. WHEELER, ARCHITECTS.

ST. NICOLAI VICARAGE AND THE ST. NICOLAI DISPENSARY, DENMARK,
MAGDAHL NEILSEN, ARCHITECT. GROUND PLAN.

Current A rchitecture.

ST. NICOLAI VICARAGE AND THE ST. NICOLAI DISPENSARY,
SVENDBORG, DENMARK. MAGDAHL NEILSEN, ARCHITECT.

172

Current Architecture,

THE ST. NICOLAI DISPENSARY, SVENDBORG, DENMARK.
MAGDAHL NEILSEN, ARCHITECT.

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English Mediaeval Figure -Sculpture.

CHAPTER VII.— Section I.

THE FIRST GOTHIC STATUES
(1200-1280).

In our early chapters we illustrated the
steps by which the incised figure-carvings of
Norse sculpture passed into the relief-carvings of
English Romanesque art — the tympana of the
Norman doorways giving us a continuous record.
We have now to trace the further progress of the
figure sculptor, as from practice in the relief¬
carving of slabs and panels he passed to the
accomplishment of the detached statue. This
was in England distinctly the achievement of
Gothic art. But for the first fifty years of it we
have little to show. It is difficult to produce
from our Transitional or early Gothic building
any stone figures that seem leading up to the
statues that appear about the year 1220 on the
fronts of Peterborough and Wells. Although as
early as 1130 there had been shaft-figures at
Rochester — “ King ” and “ Queen ” on either side
of the doorway (see Fig. 60, chapter III.) — and
something of the same kind at Colchester, the
“ Cluniac ” craftsmanship which the great monas¬
teries introduced for such works (see chap¬
ter III.) seems to have founded in England no
school of native statuaries. We had no peopling
of our church doorways, as those of Vezelay,
Laon, and Chartres were peopled in the twelfth
century, with arrays of standing figures. We
have not merely lost our examples of such an art :
neither the early Gothic of Canterbury, nor the
fully-developed style of the Winchester chapels, or
the Lincoln quire,* made provision for statues ;
their wall arcades have no platforms to give
standing room for them. As far as examples are
preserved to us, we have, capable of being referred
to the years between 1160 and 1210, only the figure
of Bishop Gundulf (so-called) at Rochester, which,
originally set up on the west front, has now
been removed into a chapel in the north transept.
And this, less perhaps than the earlier shaft-figures,
exhibits the manner of a statue : rather it is an
effigy set upright, to be classed with the early
bishops’ effigies at Exeter or the abbots’ effigies
at Peterborough, which will be presently dis¬
cussed.

At Wells, however, as our illustrations in former
chapters made clear, the treatment of the figure
in corbel-carving and in the label-head had reached

* At Ely the external arcades immediately at the side of the
Galilee entrance are shallowly recessed. There may have been
wooden or metal images set in them.

considerable attainment during Bishop Reginald’s
building of that cathedral (1 171-1191), and there¬
upon the sculptor’s art developed amazingly.0
When Bishop Jocelyn built the front (c. 1220) the
tympanum carving (see Fig. 109, chapter VI.) of the
west door had the figure in full projection from the
ground; and, in the quatrefoils above, the angels
and subject-carvings are pieces of sculpture com¬
pletely detached. And now in the arcades of the
front we find actual statues, life size, and stand¬
ing free, wrought by the mason in the Doulting
stone. On the Peterborough front also, beside
the full reliefs in quatrefoils and trefoils which we
have illustrated, there were free-standing figures,
which we would also date c. 1220. We have,
then, to recognise, both in the East and West of
England, a somewhat sudden appearance of a
stone statue-carving in the first quarter of the
thirteenth century.

This appearance, and the character of the
statues themselves, have given rise to certain
theories. Foreign artists, loosely specified as
French, Italian, or even Greek, have been con¬
jectured as coming to England in the trains
of the returning bishops on the removal of the
papal interdict, when, after the death of John
in 1216, ecclesiastical building proceeded with
fresh activity. No actual evidence for this im¬
portation of foreign sculptors is, however, forth¬
coming. No hint of it, nor any name of a foreign
sculptor, has been recovered from the records :
the idea rests on conjecture only. One piece of
evidence has, however, been adduced which de¬
serves to be sifted. Arabic numerals are said to
occur on the back of some of the sculpture of the
Wells front. Now, since such numerals, if not quite
unknown in English manuscripts before 1250,!
were certainly in commoner use in Italy and the
East, it is contended that their appearance at
Wells constitutes a significant indication of
foreign workmanship in the statues. The fact
is, however, that these numerals have only been
found in the tier of the Resurrection, which is the
topmost tier of sculptures of the main front, and
at this height their occurrence is really no evi¬
dence for the whole body of the statues below.

* The building at Wells is supposed to have languished after
1200. Worcester may have then taken on the Wells sculptors
for work in its eastern chapels, which judging from the stone-
dressings would seem built from 1200-1218. A sequence of style
in sculpture can be traced in the two cathedrals.

f Arabic numerals occur in the MS. 0.2.45, Trinity College,
Cambridge, which is of the first part of the thirteenth century.
We are indebted to Dr. James of the Fitzwilliam Museum for
this reference.

1 74

English M ediceval Figvre-Sculplure.

For, in the first place, this Resurrection sculpture
might well have been the latest executed on the
front — very possibly not put in place till after
1250, when Arabic numerals were coming into
use in England. And, secondly, it is to be observed
that the towers of the Wells front were raised
from 1380-1430; that the scaffolding for this new
building would have been at the level of this
Resurrection sculpture; so that its pieces were
not improbably removed, and might very possibly
have been numbered so that they might after¬
wards be correctly replaced. At any rate, it is
clear that since there were later re-arrangements
and additions of new statues to all the niches
above the tier of the Resurrection, indications on
this tier are scarcely evidence for what is below.

In support, however, of a foreign origin for the
Wells statues, the quality and style of them, apart
from other considerations, have been taken as im¬
plying foreign authorship. The connoisseurship
of the returning Crusader has been evoked to
account for the classic or antique simplicity which
flavours their art. It is urged that the taking
of Constantinople in the fourth crusade intro¬
duced into England the knowledge of the Eastern
arts of sculpture, and that in imitation of models
brought from the East there grew up suddenly an
English art of sculpture. The likeness of our
thirteenth-century examples to certain early
works of Greek art is so accounted for, and our
sculpture is taken as an imitative revival based
upon the works of antique art that were still
existent in Constantinople when it was sacked by
Baldwin and the Venetians.

But it is to be replied that the Greek figure-work
of the fifth century b.c., to which likeness is seen,
has been mostly dug up out of the ground for us.
There is no likelihood that the Crusaders in 1215
were able to see its early masterpieces. And
equally unsupported is the theory of a school of
Byzantine figure-sculpture preserving the quality
and sentiment of the fifth century b.c. and pro¬
ducing statues in the thirteenth century at Con¬
stantinople. No work of such a school has been
known or conjectured. The date was six hun¬
dred years earlier, when, as our first chapter
argued, the Greek artizan could come into England
to introduce an art of sculpture among barbarians,
carving classic figurines on Anglian crosses. But
in the year 1200 what life was there in eastern
•sculpture after centuries of iconoclastic repression
and centuries of decadent formalism to enable it
to throw out branches of art in western Europe ?
The potent influence in the East was, at the time
of Crusades, the Saracenic culture ; but this would
lead to no new start of figure-sculpture, for to the
Mahomedan it was idolatrous. The arts of
mathematics, of surgery, of metal-work, of fabric-

design and floral-pattern, these may have owed
much in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to
contact with Arabic civilization; but the repre¬
sentation of the human form was necessarily out¬
side this influence.

If, therefore, Crusaders returning to England
brought back ideas as to figure-work, it would be
from quarters much nearer home than the Levant.
As already said, the great churches of west
Europe at the end of the twelfth century possessed
many facades arrayed with standing statues of
stone. Such were those of St. Trophime, Arles,
of St. Iago de Compostella in the south, of the
cathedrals of Laon, Corbeil, and Chartres in the
north of France, while shortly after 1200 was begun
the great front of Notre Dame, Paris. No doubt
our English statues have a general resemblance to
the French as to treatment of subject and method
of representation. But in the technique of the
sculptor’s chisel there are distinctive differences,
sufficient to separate the English works, not only
from the above earliest works of the French
schools, but from the many contemporary examples
in other parts of western Europe. There are
abundant materials which can be relied on to
represent the manners of the Italian, French, and
Rhenish sculptors of the thirteenth century.
And we can say that if in the Canterbury quire of
1175 the French master can be readily recognised
by the style of the foliage ; if the mosaic of
Henry III.’s shrine at Westminster allows no
mistake as to its Roman origin ; so it would be at
Wells if some Frenchmen or Italians had carved
the images of the front. We should have been
able to point to statues having the same technique
upon this or that Italian or French church ; we
could rely on finding the same draperies, the same
expressions, the same qualities of style. As it
is, no one has discovered the foreign statues
which have the technique of Wells. The inequali¬
ties of its art, its peculiar excellences in combina¬
tion with awkwardnesses, such as those of the
sitting kings (Fig. 1 17), betray a native school striv¬
ing after its own ideal. We must propose, there¬
fore, to dismiss the likelihood of a foreign impor¬
tation of either sculpture or sculptors being the
starting point of the English school, and to
account for its qualities in another way.

First, then, as to the suddenness of the appear¬
ance of the free-standing stone statue in the
English art — the significance of this as implying
a sudden development of figure-conception in the
round by the English artist is surely overrated.
The power of this conception had been in prac¬
tice in the English art for over two hundred years,
only it had been in the hands of another craft
than that of the mason. The goldsmiths were
the artisans who had been furnishing the stone-

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture.

carved interiors of the mason’s buildings with
images of wood, metal, and ivory. Now such
materials were unsuited for statues placed in the
open air on the outside of buildings. If of metal
they would be stolen, if of wood they would de¬
cay. Since Gothic architecture was essentially
stone building, was it likely that the craft of the
mason was to be denied development in such
a matter ? As soon as his skill by practice in
label-head, in relief, and, as we shall presently
show, in the effigy, advanced far enough, he in
due course was set to make a stone imagery, which
should permanently furnish the fronts of the
churches as the goldsmith’s wood and ivory images
had furnished the interiors. We can so derive
English figure-sculpture from the free experiment
of the masonic craft, and are under no necessity
of calling in teachers from abroad or models from
the East. The native goldsmith’s art of image¬
making supplied abundant models.

The fact was that Gothic art, being that of
stone-shaping, sought the summit of its enterprise
in the fashioning of the block to the figure of
humanity. That it did so late in English art was
perhaps because of the absence on English soil of
such Roman work as could hand on immediately
the traditions of the stone classic statues. We
believe that the abundant remains of Roman
work in South France and Italy did stir the
ambitions of the sculptors in the south of Europe,
but in England there was no likelihood of this.

Another explanation must therefore be sought
for the “ classic ” likenesses, or reminiscences of
early Greek style which are apparent in our earliest
statues. So far as pose and attitude are con¬
cerned, the whole system of sculptural representa¬
tion in England was necessarily that of eccle¬
siastical prescription, which had long ago fixed
the types of head, the attitudes and features of
sacred character. Such prescription, in its foun¬
dation Byzantine, and drawn from “ classic ” art,
appears in Ghurch art in England as elsewhere,
and the direct transmitters of its traditions would
be the goldsmiths employed upon church images.
Mason imagers could not but follow this lead and
carve saints at first in the Byzantine fashion. So
far the habit of church representation means little
as to any direct connection with the East. But
we must seek another explanation for those more
subtle affinities with the pagan Greek art which
we have noted in the Lincoln arch-mould figures,
the reliefs of the Westminster triforium, and now
again will find in the sculpture of Wells. We are
not seeking to compare our stone sculpture to the
marble masterpieces of Phidias or Praxiteles ;
but there is a monumental simplicity and direct¬
ness of calm expression in pose and drapery,
which make our thirteenth-century sculpture and

1 7 5

that of the fifth century b.c. alike, and in some
instances create a quite remarkable resemblance.
The fine treatment of the drapery, the purity of
its lines, as well as the serenity of the whole
expression in face and figure, suggest parallels.
Nobility of idea have in both been combined with
simplicity of expression.

But the quality of this combination does not
imply any conscious imitation on the part of
Gothic artists of the earlier style. Rather it is
direct proof that the Gothic art was a fresh one —
founding itself by successes over the difficulties of
sculptural expression, with this expression un-
tramelled by the conventions of imitation ; for
the affectation of copying makes impossible this
unconscious charm. We find we cannot now
of set purpose reproduce the simplicities of
either mediaeval or Greek art, so would it have
been impossible for the thirteenth-century sculptor
to have got his quality by imitation of Greek
models if he could have got access to them. The
similarities are therefore no indication of imita¬
tion, but show the Mediaeval art of sculpture
growing up under the same kind of influence as
those which produced the Greek. The simplicity
and directness of both are symptoms of a certain
stage in the growth of art.

We conclude, therefore, on all grounds, that the
art of the Mediaeval statuary was the direct out¬
come of the English masons’ craft of building. The
subjects of his representations were at first the
same as those of the imagers, who were filling the
churches with wooden and metal saints ; but his
skill in the figure grew from his own practice in
the stone-shapings of architectural science.

This being so, we ought to find in the first
statue-making of our art an immediate dependence
on the manner of the imager — and at Peterborough
the ideas of a wooden image are suggested. The
broad, smooth surfaces are suited for the painting,
from which wooden images got their effect, and
the big stone nimbus forming part of the head
shows the treatment natural to the shaping of
wooden planks. We shall see a return to the
same technique at the end of the fourteenth
century, when stone and wood were used as
similar materials in the hands of the imager. We
have, indeed, left to us no images of wood
or metal belonging to the twelfth and early
thirteenth century ; but, as we have already pointed
but, we may sufficiently judge of their appearance
by the treatment of the figure shown in the con¬
temporary seals. Referring to the Lincoln seal,
Fig. 40 in chapter III., we can see in the Peter¬
borough statues the same head treatment (see
Fig. 113), the goggle eyes, the thin nose and long
upper lip, the distinct division of the legs, pecu¬
liarities which we have noted also in the Lincoln

English Mediaeval Figure- Sculp ture.

176

FIG. U3. — PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT.
APOSTLE FIGURES.

(From photo kindly lent by S. Gardner, Esq.)

Photo : Bolas.

FIG. 1 14. — PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT.
ST. PETER.

reliefs illustrated in the same chapter. The
image treatment is most clearly seen in the row
of nine apostles just above the great arches.
Our illustration (Fig. 113)0 is of two of the central
figures, which are somewhat larger than the rest
and are most characteristic of the style. Below
them in the spandrels of the great arches are
twelve smaller figures of Bishops and Ladies,
showing an advance of the stone sculptor away
from the squat models of the goldsmith ; and
above, of the same kind, are six Kings, two in each
gable, which also have dispensed with the nimbus.
Above again, in the apex of each of the three
gables, are three large seated figures, the three
remaining apostles. In the north and south
gables the wooden character of treatment is very
marked in the squat figures with grotesquely long
necks, probably intended to have metal ornaments.
But in the central gable the St. Peter (Fig. 114) is
of a different type, and since an alteration or later
finishing of the central bay is indicated, it is pos¬
sible we have in this St. Peter the latest figure of
the front, wrought when the stone-imager had
developed his style. There is sufficient likeness to
the figures on the Lincoln front to suggest that
this St. Peter was carved about 1250. The pecu¬
liarity of all these Peterborough figures, which to
our mind reveals their close connection with the
church image, lies in the short proportions, and
this squatness can be traced as a continuing

* It was taken from the scaffold put up for the repairs of
1897-

character in the later statues of east England,
which we will take up again at Lincoln.

Here, dealing with the statues of the first half
of the thirteenth century, we pass to the west of
England and see a quite different style of art.
What is significant in the Wells statues is their
long proportion, while instead of the smooth,
broad surfaces, we find a finely divided drapery,
modelled in narrow planes, both evidences to
another influence than that of the imager. The
goldsmith in his daily craft of shrine-making
and seal engraving had to be perpetually adapting
the figure to enclosures such as circles, quatre-
foils, etc., which often necessitated squatness.
The sitting figure was more suited to his purpose
than the standing, and when he used the latter one
can see his tendency to make it as short as pos¬
sible. But another craft at the end of the twelfth
century was at work upon the figure, and its
practice favoured long proportions. The maker of
stone coffins at the end of the thirteenth century
was inscribing the covering slabs of dead notables
with likenesses of the deceased, which rapidly
developed into effigies modelled in the round.
Now, though at Peterborough we have preserved
such effigies of the twelfth and early thirteenth
century (which we will illustrate in our next
chapter), these were not the work of the local
sculptor, but were imported articles from the
Purbeck workshops of the south of England. The
ornaments and methods of the Purbeck draperies,
the expression, and the round heads of these

English Medieval Figure-Sculpture.

'77

Peterborough abbots, are as different as can be
from those of the apostles in the Front. The
former have had no influence on the latter, whose
art is quite unconscious of their proximity.

At Wells the story is very different. We have
there also effigies of the twelfth and early thir¬
teenth centuries. These are, however, not of
Purbeck marble, but wrought in the stone of the
cathedral and showing the leaf carvings which are
those of Wells capitals. We cannot doubt that
they have been carved on the spot by the same
masons who at Wells and elsewhere developed
the Gothic style of west England. Though the illus¬
tration of effigies belongs to our next chapter, we
give an example here in order that the drapery and
treatment may be compared with the Bishop statues
of the front (Figs. 116, 118). The effigy (Fig. 115)
lies in the south aisle — the first on the left as you

pass eastwards— and was probably the earliest in
date, though the one beside it was produced not
long afterwards — probably before the year 1200 —
being followed by that in the north aisle, and
then by the two at the end of the south aisle,
all the five being placed in Bishop Reginald’s
quire,* which was just then finished. There are
two other effigies at the end of the north aisle
that are later, as the type of the leaf-carving in
one of them shows. The interesting point for us
here is that in this effigy-carving (to which the
Doulting masons were set, because no doubt the

* It seems to have been customary so to commemorate pre¬
ceding bishops in a new building. There had been with Reginald
five bishops of Wells from the Conquest. So at Chichester are
found seven Purbeck slabs in the east chapel ; (c. 1200) com¬
memorating the building bishop, Segfrid and his six predeces¬
sors in the see.

Bishop. Queen. King. Notable.

FIGS. 1 1 6, 1 1 7. — WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT. FOUR TYPICAL FIGURES.

VOL. XIV. — P

I 78

English Medueval Figure- Sculpture .

land carriage to Wells of Purbeck effigies was ex¬
pensive) we can see a gradual advance towards the
statue-technique, so that the folds, which in the
first efforts are rendered in parallel rounded ribs
very like those of the Norman reliefs (see Figs.
47 and 50 in chapter III.), become varied in the
experiments of the mason till they attain (in the
north-aisle effigies) the faceted, hollow rendering
which is so peculiarly that of the Wells sculptor.
We can, in fact, in these effigies, see the mason
being trained into a statuary. In the label-head
and corbel he had learnt the power of rendering
the facial features that he wished, now he practised
himself in the presentation of drapery, and so

HG. I I?.— WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST
FRONT. TYPE A.

equipped himself for dealing with the figure in
the round. But the long proportions which were
natural to the coffin-lid remained in his art as the
sign of its origin. We show here, in further illus¬
tration (Figs. 116, 1 17, 118, 1 19) of the progress
of the art, a selection from the 130 statues that
remain on the west front. Next month we pro¬
pose to go more into detail, and, dividing the
Wells statues into classes, give examples of each.
Taking advantage of the scaffoldings lately put to
the front, we have been able to take photographs
at close quarters.

Edward S. Prior.

Arthur Gardner.

FIG. I 19. — WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST
FRONT. TYPE B.

Architectural Education

VI.— UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. *
By F. M. Simpson.

The scheme of architectural education at
University College has been entirely remodelled
since Professor Roger Smith’s death, and a three
years’ course for students before they enter an
office has been started. Students not wishing to
take the entire course can attend any of the
lectures and classes, except that no one can take
the construction lectures without joining a studio
class.

The three years’ course is framed so as to
provide students with a systematic training in
the practical and aesthetic sides of architecture, and
at the same time to encourage them to continue
their general education, and so bring them into
touch with students in other departments of the
College who are pursuing different courses of
study.

In the first year students attend lectures
on any three of the following subjects : Mathema¬
tics, Elementary Mechanics, Graphics, Chemistry,
French, German, English, History; go through a
courseof building construction dealing with thecar-
case of a building ; draw from the antique in the
Slade School, and, in the summer term, commence
lectures on the history of architectural develop¬
ment.

In the second year a special course is arranged
by the Professor of Engineering dealing with
iron and steel construction and laboratory tests
on cements, bricks, stone, timber, metals, etc.
The building construction lectures and studio
work deal with the fittings of a building and
constructive details not previously mentioned, and
the lectures on architectural development are
continued. The student draws from the antique
(if sufficiently advanced, from the life) and attends
a practical course on surveying.

The third year includes the planning and design¬
ing of buildings, with further exercises on the work
of the different trades previously lectured upon.
The course of lectures on architectural develop¬
ment is concluded ; a class for modelling is started
and students attend lectures on hygiene delivered
by the professor of public health.

Visits will be paid from time to time to buildings
in course of erection, to workshops, to buildings
of interest in and near London, old and new, and
to the British and South Kensington Museums.
Sketching and measuring will be encouraged, and
will form part of vacation work. Students who

* This article is to be substituted for that appearing in the
September issue of “ The Review."

receive permission will be allowed to work in the
Trades’ Training School, Great Titchfield Street.

Students who take the three years’ course are
eligible for the College certificate and also for
the Donaldson silver medals.

VII.— THE SCHOOL OF APPLIED ART,
ROYAL INSTITUTION, EDINBURGH.

This school was inaugurated in the autumn
of the year 1892 for the purpose of meeting a
growing demand for a higher standard of excel¬
lence in all kinds of art work, with an eye to a
large number of industries in the city.

In formulating a system it was decided to make
the study of architecture the basis ; it being recog¬
nised that to instil a mere knowledge of ornament
was an incomplete education, and that, to decorate
with intelligence, a thorough knowledge of the
object to be decorated must be acquired. It has,
therefore, been laid down that all students engaged
in the study of any of the applied arts shall for the
first period of their five years’ curriculum be made
thoroughly conversant with the general principles
of architecture.

With regard to the method of teaching, it has
also been held imperative that each subject be
taught by masters who are engaged in the daily
practice of what they teach, thus ensuring prac¬
tical rather than theoretical teaching. Stringent
rules forcing all students through a narrow course
of instruction are non-existent.

The full curriculum of the school is five years,
the course of instruction in the various years
being, generally speaking, as follows : —

First Year. — During the first year, as already
stated, the student is made conversant with the
grammatical proportions of architecture by the
preparation of scale, detail, and perspective draw¬
ings of the orders, also preparing large free
sketches from casts of historic ornament.

Second Year. — In the second year of the curri¬
culum the student is further instructed in the
general principles of architectural design, scio-
graphy, modelling from casts of historic orna¬
ment, the principles of colour, and figure-drawing
from the antique.

Third Year. — In the third year of the curri¬
culum comes the parting of the ways, when each
student diverges more into the study of his own
particular branch of art — -architecure, sculpture,
furniture, metal work, etc. He is then instructed
in the principles of design relating more directly
to his special branch of work, and by the careful

Books .

1 80

stud}’ of casts and photographs of the best exist¬
ing examples of his art, is encouraged to seek and
obtain his inspiration in design from the truth and
beauty to be found in those. Modelling in clay,
the study of colour from the still life, and figure
drawing from the antique, are also carried on by
the majority of the students.

Fourth and Fifth Years. — Those latter years of
the curriculum are taken up with the more advanced
study and design in ail the branches of work in¬
dicated in the third year's course. In the more
advanced study of colour, the students are taught
to treat their studies in a decorative rather than
pictorial form.

During the summer months Saturday afternoon
sketching classes are formed for the purpose of
visiting the best historic examples of domestic and
ecclesiastical work to be found in the vicinity of
Edinburgh, when careful measured drawings and
sketches are made of stonework, woodwork, metal
work, plaster work, and furniture, or whatever
special work the students may be more particu¬
larly interested in.

The system of holiday bursaries also bulks
largely in the training of students of this school.
Those bursaries, ranging from £1 to £=>, are

annually awarded to a number of the best students
in each subject for the purpose of assisting them
to go to any part of the United Kingdom and
prepare studies of the most interesting examples
and specimens of the art they follow, those works
being judged and marks given by the committee
in the autumn of each year.

Three travelling scholarships of from £40 to
£60 are also awarded annually to students who
have completed the five years' curriculum of the
school with distinction, for the purpose of study¬
ing their art in any part of the United Kingdom
for not less than four months.

Recognising the great value to the students of
making careful analytical studies of old buildings,
their decorative feitures and contents, and also
with a view to giving a national character to the
domestic and ecclesiastical work of the present
day, the committee of the school, for some years
back, have established bursaries for two students
who devote their whole time for one year to the
preparation of record drawings of Scottish work.
The drawings remain the property of the school,
and a valuable library of reference is being formed.
These drawings are open to the inspection of all
interested in Scottish art and history.

Books.

GEORGIAN PERIOD.

“ The Georgian Period: being Measured Drawings of Colo¬
nial Work.” Part XII. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. : American
Architect Co., 211, Tremont S:reat. English Agent: B. T.
Batsford, 94, High Holborn, W.C.

In reviewing the early parts of this work, I
took occasion to point out that many of the designs
of houses and churches of the Georgian period in
England were equally well worthy of study by modern
and contemporary artists. In the present part a good
many English examples have been illustrated from
time to time and some articles 011 our insular archi¬
tecture have appeared by Mr. Paul Waterhouse and
others, among whom we should name Mr. George
Hudman, whose chapter on Dublin we noticed as
being in the eighth number.

The editor, who in this, the twelfth part of the
series, brings his labours to a close, should be con¬
gratulated on the sustained high level of the whole
work. In a modest concluding envoi, he says: “It
is a ‘ thousand pities ’ that when architects began,
twenty years or so ago, to turn their attention again
to the possibilities that lie in the Georgian style —
when it is used with discretion and refinement — there
was not in existence some such work as this.” We
on this side can put forward no such plea in arrest of

judgment. We have had the five volumes of the Vitru¬
vius Britannicus, to say nothing of the books on Inigo
Jones, and those by Ware, Gibbs, Adam, Chambers,
and many more. But in the parenthesis quoted
above, “ when used with discretion and refinement,”
we recognise the most important point, the kernel of
the nut which all architects have to crack. Here,
even more than in America, the experience mentioned
has been common — “ the country has been endowed
with a vast quantity of buildings, intended to express
the spirit of ‘ Old Colonial ’ work, which because of
their ill-considered proportions and vulgar overdressing
with applied ornament are too often mere caricatures
of the style.”

This concluding part contains a full and excellent
index to the third volume of the whole work, besides
chapters on Savannah and Millford in the Southern
States ; on the principal designers of “ Colonial ”
buildings ; on the Greek revival which affected our
Transatlantic cousins much as it did ourselves, and
some account of the Massachusetts State-house, fully
illustrated both with views and also with details.
There are many other pictures in the number of the
kind and degree of value to which this admirable
publication has accustomed us.

W. J. Loftie.

THE ARCHITECTURAL
REVIEW, DECEMBER,
I903, VOLUME XIV.
NO. 85.

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The Old Bridge of Ayr.

So far as is presently known, no certain
record exists of the building, or date, of this
bridge. By a charter of Alexander II. in favour
of the Burgh of Ayr f (December 7th, 1236) certain
fishings are granted for the purpose of sustaining
the bridge {ad sustentationem pontis) , and promoting
other affairs of the town. Probably in part, the
existing old bridge is the bridge referred to ; cer¬
tain it is that there is no known record of the
actual building of any later bridge. In the Burgh
Court Book under date 1440, the bridge is again
mentioned ; and in each succeeding century re¬
ference is made in Royal Charters and other
documents to the bridge, and its frequent repair.
Whatever may have been the general extent of
these repairs, on one occasion at least they must
have been very considerable, sufficient at any rate
to render the bridge impassable in 1491 to James
IV., who seemingly elected to be ferried across
the river lower down, rather than use the old ford
immediately above the bridge. Whether then,
much or little of the superstructure of the earlier

* Burns’s Auld Brig in the “ Twa Brigs.”

t Charters of the Royal Burgh of Ayr.

bridge remains, it may not unreasonably be
assumed that for nearly 700 years the inhabitants
of Ayr have time and again repaired the venerable
and historic structure, and scrupulously maintained
its fabric to our day. In time past, let the repairs
have been what they may, or whatsoever the
cause or extent of the injury or decay, it is
practically certain that in recent years only, and
probably for the first time in its history, serious
defects have revealed themselves in its foundations.
These defects have been caused, not by any
apparent failure of the original structure, but by
the continual deepening by dredging operations
of the harbour a few hundred yards down stream,
whereby the river scour has been materially in¬
creased, and the old foundations undermined.

The north abutment of the bridge is founded
upon rock ; the piers and south abutment upon
firm boulder clay. Under each pier and upon
this bed of clay, rests an old oak cradle of heavy
and roughly hewn oak logs — now black, and hard
almost as bog oak — covering rather more than the
full area of the piers and cut-waters. These logs,
roughly perhaps ten inches square, lie close

Photo: A. Monnickendam.

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH-WEST, SHOWING DEPRESSION OF SOUTHERN ARCH, SPANDRIL
AND PARAPET; ALSO REMAINS OF CONCRETE FENDER OF 1883-1884 ROUND PIER.

VOL. XIV. — Q 2

The Old Bridge of Ayr.

1 84

Photo: A. Monnickendam.

DETAIL SHOWING FISSURE IN EAST CUTWATER OF NORTHERN PIER AND SHEET
PILING OF 1867-68. THERE IS NO CORBEL STRING-COURSE UNDER
SPRINGING OF THIS ARCH.

together in a direction diagonal to the line of the
piers, and are seemingly held together by cross
logs of smaller size placed underneath, about four
to five feet apart. These oak cradles appear to
have been sunk only about two feet below the
then river bed, and upon them rest the stone cut¬
waters and piers which carry the bridge. The
piers themselves, are each practically 15 ft. in
thickness, and the distance between the extremes
of the cut-waters varies from 35 to 37 ft. As in
all mediaeval structures, there is no mechanical
and absolute repetition of sizes in the work. The
arches and piers all look the same, but there is
that indescribable charm of “humanness” in
the work, which arises just from that variation of
sizes and detail, and which is lost in the invariable

exactitude of much of the work of modern days.
The northmost arch for instance, has a rise of
about two feet less than the three remaining arches,
and, unlike them, does not rise from a corbel
course ; while the line of the spring of the four
arches is anything but absolutely uniform, although
each arch has practically a 54 ft. span. Round
each pier and cut-water, at about three feet above
the oak cradle, is a broad splayed base course;
while the arches, with the exception of that already
instanced, spring from a boldly wrought and charac¬
teristically Scotch corbel stringcourse. A curious
point also to note, is the upward incline of the
splayed base course on the west cut-water of the
southmost pier. Between abutments the length
of the bridge is about 257 ft., while if the steeply

The Old Bridge of Ayr.

'85

APPROACH FROM THE NORTH.

DETAIL, LOOKING TOWARDS HIGH STREET SHOWING ALSO DEPRESSION OF
PARAPET ABOVE SOUTHERN ARCH

Photos: A. Monnickendam.

SECTIOn THRO' BFUDCE LOhC I TU D I h AL SECTION! TMRO’ DRIDCE

The Old Bridge of Ayr.

01
( n
c
or

THE OLD BRIDGE OF AYR. TRACED MAINLY FROM DRAWINGS
PREPARED BY THE BURGH SURVEYOR IN 1883.

The Old Bridge of Ayr. 187

inclined approaches at either end be added — on
the Ayr side between houses — the overall length
is something more than 500 ft. The bridge is
now used as a foot-bridge, and the width inside
the parapet walls is about 12 ft.

Traditionally, the bridge is held to have been
founded in the thirteenth century by two beneficent
ladies, Isobel Lowe and her sister ; and on the
inside wall of the east parapet, southward of its
sundial which marks the middle of the bridge,
could be seen until quite recently, two roughly
hewn effigies, purporting by long held legend to
be the heads of the beneficent foundresses; while
immediately above and . still decipherable, is the
date 1252, but the numerals seem too modern in
character, and too clear in cutting, for original
work.

When the nature of the rapidly-increasing river
scour consequent upon harbour dredging is borne
in mind, it will readily be realised that the condi¬
tion of the bridge is most precarious. In 1867-68
it was officially reported to be in a very dilapidated
and neglected condition, and the piers were, at
that time, surrounded with sheet piling. By
1883-84 this sheet piling round the two southmost
piers, against which the current is mainly directed,
had been partly washed away, and the foundations
of the middle pier exposed. At this date these
piers were unfortunately encased with heavy con¬
crete fenders, which materially narrowed the
waterway; and in the succeeding ten years the
river bed underneath the bridge was lowered by at
least five feet, while the fenders were themselves
undermined in places by 8 ft. inward from the
waterway. In 1886 the bridge was again adversely
reported upon, and its custodians were urged to
undertake its immediate repair, if its preservation
was desired. Eight years later the Town Council
had again officially reported to it the increasingly
precarious condition of the bridge, and this tune
one of the destructive fenders, (that round the
middle pier) was removed, and for the first time
the pier was properly underpinned with heavy
brick foundations, encasing securely and holding
in position the remaining boulder clay beneath
the pier.

In 1899, and again in 1902, the Burgh Surveyor
reported upon the piers, and upon receipt of the
latter report the Council opined they should be
instantly repaired; and in the following year
Mr. John Eaglesham, C.E., reported exhaustively,
and in official language strongly recommended
that this work should not be too long delayed.
In September last, the Burgh Surveyor reported a
subsidence of the hornizing above the crown of
the southmost arch, which, upon examination,
revealed the seriously decayed state of this part
of the fabric ; for between the open joints of the

arch stones along nearly the whole length of crown,
a footrule could have been dropped through the
open joints into the river beneath. This arch is
the weakest in the bridge, just as its pier is the
most insecure. With the arch crest in this con¬
dition, its haunch on the north side depressed
between pier and crown, the spandril and parapet
walls following the depression, the whole super¬
structure weakened by age and want of care, it
calls convincingly enough, one would think, for
instant attention and repair. True, these old-
time structures somehow hold together with a
tenacity unexpected ; but surely this old bridge is
asked to do more than stone and lime, and the
skill of a past age, can, all unsuccoured, be f drly
called upon to bear ; and the probability is that
when Ayr is in flood,

“ One lengthen’d, tumbling sea ; ”

and

“Crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat,”

surge and beat themselves against the old bridge,
it may without shame be sore worsted in the
struggle.

Founded traditionally by beneficence, it will be
strange indeed if, by the curious irony of fate, the
bridge should also be destroyed by beneficence.
In 1879 a worthy citizen left a holograph will,
bequeathing his fortune, subject to certain life
rents, to the Town for behoof of the bridge; but
the Council, fearing lest by any means they might
invalidate their prospective right to the legacy
should they in any way forestall its purpose by
repairing the bridge, are yet in this further quan¬
dary that, if they wait till the legacy wholly vests,
they may then find that there is no bridge remain¬
ing upon which to expend the bequest.

In 1877, just twenty-six years ago, one of the
finest and most beautiful bridges the Brothers
Adam ever designed, a bridge which with its
refined lines and details, its rarely unique leaden
figures and sound craftsmanship, ought to have
been the care and pride of any community, was
destroyed by much the same causes now at work
in the foundations of the older bridge. The har¬
bour is still being dredged and deepened, the river
scour is still increasing; the Adams bridge has
gone. A river weir would minimise the scour,
and save not the undermining of the old bridge
alone, but of the houses on the river banks, whose
day also must come if the scour continues un¬
checked. Indeed, in the early title deeds of some
of these old houses, a weir then seemingly exist¬
ing, is referred to ; and it may be that in this our
forefathers were wiser than are we. But whether
a weir is to be of the future or no, the southmost
arch of the bridge should be at once supported
and made secure, the piers underpinned, and the

Current A rchitccture.

i 83

whole fabric treated reverently and with care,
stone after stone. Part of the old hewn ashlar
has already at some time been replaced by modern
rock-face ashlar, a wholly unnecessary innovation,
and one as unsuited to the old structure as would
be a frock coat upon a 13th century warrior.
These things ought not to be possible, nor should
the bridge be thus caricatured. Not many of
these mediaeval bridges now remain, and they
should be treated, in virtue of ancient lineage and
useful service, with reverence and care. Their
preservation should be a source of pride to the

citizens, for the day has long gone by, when
cathedrals and churches — great and small — were
relegated by indifference and ignorance to spolia¬
tion and decay; and bridges to-day, few as they
are, are surely beyond the hand of ignominy. Nay,
even because of their rarity, are they not all the
more priceless possessions of historic and educa¬
tional value; and a bridge such as ours, with, in
addition, a poetic and literary fame, should stir
even the most apathetic of citizens to a sense of
its value, and a desire to hand it on unimpaired
to his children. James A. Morris.

Current Architecture.

Bridlington Grammar School. — This
school, which was opened in 1899, provided ac¬
commodation for a hundred boys, thirty of whom
were boarders, with the head-master’s house at the
south end of the building. The part then erected
ended northward with the central hall. The plans
were designed for extension on a modest scale, but
the success of the school soon necessitated exten¬
sion northward on a much larger scale than was
previously anticipated; consequently the plan is

less concentrated than would otherwise have been
the case. The hall, which rises through the two
storeys of the building, is surrounded by class¬
rooms, over which are dormitories. The additions
which have been completed this year include fur¬
ther class-rooms, extension of the boarding accom¬
modation, and a detached building for science and
art teaching. The plan shows the central part
illustrated by the photograph. The buildings were
designed by Mr. John Bilson, of Hull.

Photo: E. Dockree.

BRIDLINGTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL. EAS1' FRONT. JOHN BILSON, ARCHITECT.

Current Architecture

'(sascwip bah •

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BRIDI.1N.GT0N GRAMMAR SCHOOI-. JOHN BILSON, ARCH ITKCT.

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IO 5 O I o Zo SO Ac 50

fEET | I | | | I | | | 1. | - - - |~ - 1— - 1 - 1 - i TtCT

hymers college, HULi.. section. (See next j,age.)

BOTTERILL, SON AND BILSON, ARCHITECTS.

Current A rchitecture.

1 90

Photo : E. Dockree.

HYMEKS COLLEGE, HULL. SOUTH-WEST ANGLE.

P.OTTER JLL, SON AND BILSON, ARCHITECTS.

Hymers College, Hull.— Hymers Col¬
lege, Hull, is a day-school erected in 1893. The
executed design, by Messrs. Botterill, Son and
Bilson, Architects, of Hull, was selected in open
competition by Mr. E. C. Robins, who acted as
assessor. In his competition instructions, Mr.
Robins fixed the general, type of plan on some¬
what similar lines to those which he himself

followed at the Bedford Grammar School which
he was then building. The building consists of
sixteen class-rooms (eight on each floor) grouped
around a central hall in such a manner that every
class-room is entered directly from the hall or
from the galleries which surround it on three
sides. The administrative offices, consisting of
the head-master's room, porter’s room, assistant-

Current Architecture

1 9 1

HYMERS COLLEGE, WEST FRONT.
BOTTERILL, SON AND BILSON, ARCHITECTS.

Current Architecture,

1 92

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Photo : E. Dockvee.

HYMERS COLLEGE, HULL. WEST ENTRANCE.

EOT i'ERILL, SON AND BILSON, ARCHITECTS.

master’s common room, and secretary’s room, are
placed in the lower building along the principal
(west) front, beneath the large windows of the
central hall, the principal entrance being in the
centre. The staircase is immediately opposite

the principal entrance, and communicates with a
wide gallery behind the hall arcade, a narrow
gallery at one end, and a wider seated gallery at
the other end. Two short corridors lead from
the central hall to the side entrances, and were

Current A rchitecture.

193

Photo : E Dockree.

HYMERS COLLEGE, HULL. NORTH-EAST ANGLE OF CENTRAL HALL.

BOTTERILL, SON AND BILSON, ARCHITECTS.

planned to communicate with separate blocks for
science and art teaching which have not yet been
carried out. The class-rooms were, in accordance
with the competition instructions, planned for
larger numbers than are actually taught in them,
following the tendency in secondary schools of
the better class to reduce the size cf the classes.
The actual accommodation of the school, includ¬

ing some class-rooms which are temporarily used
for science and art teaching, is about 350. The
building is faced with red brick, with Ancaster
stone dressings, and the roofs are covered with
red tiles. The photograph of the interior of the
central hall was taken during the holidays, as
may be seen from the presence of painters’ planks
on the tie beams.

194

Cil rren t A rch i techire.

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HYMERS COLLEGE, HULL. BOTTERILL, SON AND BILSON, ARCHITECTS.

THE COURT-HOUSE, HELMESLEY, YORKS. TEMPLE MOORE, ARCHITECT (See page 196.)

Current Architecture .

r95

MOTOR CAR HOUSE, GALLOWHILL, RENFREWSHIRE, N.B.
JAMES SALMON, SON AND GILLESPIE, ARCHITECTS.

196

Current A rchitecture.

nranNO nov/z mt

naui "*3 women gus/ • oesmdeil iMMTtuiL.

FIELI) Dials'

^miR. mou/E

Courthouse, Helmesley, Yorks. — This
building (see page 194) is constructed of local
stone and roofed with red tiles. The ground floor
is an open room used as a market hall ; on the
first floor is the court, council chamber and a
public library. Mr. Temple Moore is the architect.

Motor Car House, Gallowhill, Ren¬
frewshire, N.B., for Sir Hugh H. Smiley,
Bart. — The stone archway gives entrance to a
granolithic paved yard with glass roof, where the
cars are washed before being wheeled into the
stalls, there being accommodation for three cars.
This portion is warmed by hot-water pipes and

ventilation panels are inserted above the doors.
In the repairing house a concrete pit is formed
about 3 ft. 6 in. deep to enable the mechanism of
the car to be thoroughly examined. A sliding
pulley and tackle is also provided capable of
lifting the motor clear of the car to facilitate the
work of repairing and cleaning. The petrol store
is projected from the corner of the building to
ensure all possible ventilation. Four rooms and
a kitchen are provided for the chauffeur. The
walls generally are built, with a hollow space, of
brick rough cast. The roofs are covered with
Ruabon tiles red and yellow as they come from
the kiln. The timbers wherever exposed are

House FOP
1 hree Caro

a. ^ Covered yard dY

Ground Floor

Bedroom

Barb room

I ted room

Upper Floor

,fO

J Fee1"'

Scale.

Current A rchitecture ,

197

Photo : H. Entwistle.

A GABLE, PARR’S BANK, MANCHESTER.

CHARLES HEATHCOTE AND SONS, ARCHITECTS.

VOL. XIV. — R

198

Cu rren t A rch 1 tecture.

Photo : T. Lewis.

PARR’S P.ANK, LEICESTER. ELEVATION TO ST. MARTIN’S AND GREY STREET.

EVERARD AND PICK, ARCHITECTS.

painted with carbolineum before being put together
and afterwards coated with Archangel tar. The
several works have been executed by Paisley
tradesmen at an estimated cost of £1,300. Messrs.
James Salmon, Son and Gillespie are the architects.

Parr's Bank, Manchester. — We give an
illustration, see previous page, of a gable in the

new building now approaching completion in
Spring Gardens, Manchester, which has been
erected for Parr’s Bank, Ltd. The building is
erected in Carlisle red stone. The whole of
the ground floor and basement is used by the
Bank, the ground floor storey being entirely
lined with marble. The black and white mono¬
lith columns are an effective feature. Great

Current A rchitecture.

1 99

Photo : T. Lewis.

PARR’S BANK, LEICESTER. ELEVATION TO HOTEL STREET.

EVERARD AND PICK, ARCHITECTS.

attention has been given to the strong room
arrangements, which have been executed by
Messrs. Chubb & Sons. The whole building,
including the screens and desks, have been
carried out by Messrs. R. Neill & Sons, builders,
from the designs of Messrs. Chas. Heathcote
and Sons.

Parr’s Branch Bank, Leicester. — This
building was erected as the head offices of Messrs.
Pares’s Leicestershire Banking Company, but the
company being now merged in Parr’s Banking
Co., the premises now form a branch establish¬
ment for Leicester. The new bank is faced
externally with Portland stone, the base being

R 2

200

Current Architecture

lJhoto : T. Lewis.

PARR’S BANK, LEICESTER. INTERIOR OE BANKING HALL.

EVERARD AND PICK, ARCHITECTS.

of unpolished grey Aberdeen granite. The ex¬
ternal sculpture panels, the work of Mr. Chas.
J. Allen, of Liverpool, were illustrated in the
Review for January 1901. The banking hall
has a domed ceiling of steel construction covered
with expanded metal to receive the plaster¬

ing, the modelled decoration of which has been
executed by Mr. G. P. Bankart. The lower-
portion of the internal walls is lined with un¬
polished mahogany panelling. The whole of the
fittings are polished mahogany. The floors are
partly teak and partly marble ; the latter work

Current A rchitecture .

201

PARR’S BANK, LEICESTER. SECTION. EVERARD AND PICK, ARCHITECTS.

202

All Hallows , Lombard Street.

CJROVND

PARR’S BANK, LEICESTER.

PLANS.

EVERARD AND PICK, ARCHITECTS.

FIRST

TtIjOCHL

and other marble decorations have been exe¬
cuted by Messrs. Farmer & Brindley. The lead
glazing is by Mr. George Wragge. The elec¬
troliers and some of the ironwork are the work
of the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Art. Some
of the electric standards, name-plates and other

bronze work are by Messrs. Collins & Co., of
Leicester. The contractors for the general building
work are Messrs. J. C. Kellett & Son, and the
architects Messrs. J. B. Everard & S. Perkins
Pick. The total expenditure amounted to nearly
£40,000.

All Hallows’, Lombard Street.

It will be remembered that in the Feb¬
ruary number of this Review for the present year
we published a protest against the Special Com¬
missioners’ plan, backed by the Bishop of London,
for the demolition of All Hallows’ Church, Lom¬
bard Street, with a view to obtaining funds for
church building in other districts. At the same
time we published a series of photographs giving
views and details of the interesting interior of the
church. Since then an influentially signed petition
was presented to the parishioners who have the
right to veto a sale, and on Thursday and Friday,
the 12th and 13th November, meetings of the four
parishes united in this church were called to vote
upon the question. The scheme of sale, we are
glad to say, was then defeated by a large majority
of votes, and the church may be regarded as
saved.

We publish now a plan of the church which
will be of interest to architects. It may be noted
that, by an irony of the situation the^ conditions

of the site are such that it is extremely improba¬
ble that the sum obtainable would have been any¬
thing like so large as was estimated. This is not
infrequently the case with city sites. Thus, we
believe, in a recent instance of the kind, a
sanguine estimate originally made of what the
site might produce if cleared and sold, was
reduced on investigation by about one million
pounds.

All Hallows’ Church, then, is saved for the
time being; but how narrow the security, and how
little we can hope from the natural guardians of the
city churches for any scruple about the artistic
value of their possessions when a profit can be made
from their destruction ! Wren’s churches are al¬
ready a sadly diminished treasure. No fewer
than nine of them have already disappeared. In
France, doubtless, the State would have stepped
in and declared them historical and national
monuments. Here, where we have no ministry of
the Fine Arts, and little care for the arts among

All Hallows , Lombard Street.

203

HOUSES- FROfiTLHC.'Oft' GRAf ECHUKC IP STKE I :T-

PLAN OF ALL HALLOWS’, LOMBARD STREET.
MEASURED AND DRAWN BY H. TANNER, JUNIOR.

unite to demand of the Government that the re¬
mainder of his work in the city should be declared
sacred, and secured from the attacks of ignorance
and cupidity and of narrow ecclesiastical interest ?

ministers, the question has to be fought out in
each case, singly, on the utilitarian ground. Is it
not time that all who cherish the work and me¬
mory of Wren and the beauty of London should

English Mediaeval Figure- Sculpture.

CHAPTER VII.— Section II.

THE STATUES OF WELLS CATHEDRAL.

It is not proposed here to attempt any com¬
plete description of the statues of the Wells Front
or indeed to enter upon the vexed question of the
meanings and possible ascriptions of the several
figures. There are some 130 remaining out of the
total of something like 200, which were no doubt
executed in the first half of the thirteenth century.
Their stone is, as has been said, the stone of the
cathedral, and the costumes and character of the
figures indicate the date of their sculpture as about
that of Bishop Jocelyn’s erection of the Front.
We must except from this description the highest
row of standing figures, the “Apostles,” whose
style very plainly declares them to be of the latter
part of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth
century, when the two towers were raised upon
the thirteenth-century substructure. Below this
the three tiers of the earlier statues are set in
the structural arcades which stretch across the
Front; their heads are shadowed under archi¬
tectural canopies, and their feet are supported
sometimes by low pedestals, but more often
are set directly on the platforms of the arcades.
The first tier of statues is some fifteen feet from
the ground, and most of it has disappeared except

FIG. 120. — WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT STATUES.
TYPE *' F.” TYPE “C.”

on the north and east sides of the north tower
of the Front. The second and third rows of
statues, which are respectively some thirty and
forty feet from the ground, are generally well
preserved.

It has been usual in attempting to assign a
meaning to the statues to take each separate
tier as having a connected subject running
through it, as is the case with the relief-carvings
in the quatrefoils, and with the Resurrection panels
at the top. There can, of course, be little doubt
that the lower row of figures on either side of the
central door (with its carving of the Virgin) would
have had a meaning in connection with that
carving. A connected purpose must be recognised
also in the statues on the buttresses — bishops on
one side, kings and warriors on the other. But
such horizontal schemes are evidently not con¬
tinuous throughout the whole Front. The panels
between the buttresses (viz., the main walls of the
Front) show independent vertical groupings of
statues outside the schemes of the buttresses.
On the extreme panel to the south of the Front
there are four figures which seem to be those of
the four “ Doctors of the Church ” (see Fig. 127)
and on the north, the corresponding panel has
four female figures as a balance to the “ Doctors "
and apparently not in subject connection with the

A. G.

KIG. 121. — WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT STATUES.
TYPE “ D.”

English Mediceval Figure-Sculphire .

205

C. TYPE “D.”

b. TYPE “G.”

e. TYPE “f.:’

FIG. 122.— WELLS CATHEDRAL.
TYPES OF THE HEADS.

f. TYPE “H.”

Photos : A. G.

STATUES ON THE WEST FRONT.

206

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture .

statues on either side. So too the central panel
(that which has the west windows of the nave)
presents an independent scheme. Finally the
figures on the north panel of the north-west tower,
and those on the east side of it abutting on the
aisle seem to make separate groups, the but¬
tresses by their side giving distinct presentations.
We have not space to do more than suggest these
arrangements, but our point here is that we have
upon Wells Front a succession of groups of
statues, executed from time to time, rather than
one consistent design worked out according to
the conception of a single artist.

The thirteenth-century figures, indeed, group
themselves by various treatments of the figure,
indicating either different hands or different dates
of execution, or probably both. It is hardly likely
that all the 200 statues of this Front could have
been done by the same hand or that they were
completed in the same ten years. We may
accordingly mark out some nine types or classes
of style, and endeavour to put them in order
of date.

Type A. — What would be supposed to have been
put in hand earliest, viz., the set of statues on
either side of the central doorway on the lowest

tier, have all disappeared. Failing these lost
statues the first type would be represented in the
figures of the second tier. Fig. 118 0 is a charac¬
teristic specimen of the “bishops” ranged on the
returns of the south-side buttresses, who in cut of
drapery and head-type very exactly match the
bishop-effigies, one of which we gave last month.
So similar to many of the statues are the recum¬
bent figures that the two which lie in the north aisle
of quire could, without discrepancy, be set up in
the niches of the Front. The points to remark in
this type are in the head treatment, and in the
foldings of the chasuble, or apronlike vestment,
which made the eucharistic garb of priest and
bishop. The type A. has generally a large head
and broad face with beard and hair treated in
stiff locks. The drapery in these first figures is
rendered with thick edges, and the chasuble folds
generally are more broadly divided than in the
later Wells types, as can be seen by looking
from Fig. 118 to Fig. 120.

Type B. — Along with these bishops were no
doubt wrought also, by the same sculptors or by
others at their side, some of the standing “ kings”

* Figs. 115, 116, 117, 118 and 119 were given last]month.

A. G.

FIG. I23. — WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST
FRONT STATUES. TYPE “E.”

A. G.

FIG. I24. — WELLS CATHEDRAL. WEST
FRONT STATUES. TYPE “ E.”

207

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture.

and “princes” which are set on the returns
of the north-side buttresses of the Front. In
their handling these statues are not far removed
from the “ bishops,” but they have much more
variety in the attitudes and expressions, and we
recognise the distinct evolution of the charac¬
teristic rippled drapery that distinguishes the
Doulting-stone sculptor. In these statues we
seem to see advances as we proceed from the
centre to the buttresses of the north-west tower,
a progression of style from south to north on
the face of the Front. The example we illustrate
(Fig. 119) is of the later type. Its head, which
is large but finely finished, is well-preserved, show¬
ing its original painted surface almost intact.
These “ kings ” are most often carved trampling
on prostrate figures and animals, a motive which
appears from the earliest times in coffin-slabs that
show effigies. Of this class also are a “ king ”
and others, on the third tier above.

Type C. — Turning the corner of the north-west
tower, we take the buttress-niches which look east
upon the north porch as likely to have been filled
with statues next after those of the Front. There
are here a set of some four or five statues on the
same second tier, which continue the large-headed
type of B., but represent “princes” and “not¬
ables ” standing in resolute attitudes but not
trampling. Fig. 117 shows the action of these
figures. Allied to these are some four mailed
figures at the north end of the Front on both
second and third tiers. We show one (Fig. 120)
which will be of interest later to compare with the
Doulting effigy at Salisbury — that of Longespee,
who died 1227. The treatment and costume are
so similar that we take both as from the same
workman’s hands.* In this class C the ex¬
pression of the head becomes freer than in the
types' A and B, and the rendering of the hair is
wavy in place of tightly curled (see Fig. 122A,
which is from a “ king ” of this class. The b
in the same illustration is the head of the outer¬
most statue of the three upon the north-west
buttress, and gives the further modification in the
direction of somewhat sentimental sideway twist,
which we shall note in the later types.

Type D. — Opposite to these last-mentioned
figures (i.e., upon the west face of the north-east
buttress of the tower) are two figures which sug¬
gest a different hand. These with some of the
preserved statues of the lowest tier, which are just
below them, make a separate group, that we may
call the “Orator” type — for the specimen (Fig. 121)
from the lowest tier reminds one of some portrait
statue of a Cicero or Cato. In the c of Fig. 122

* Shepton Mallet Church, close to the Doulting quarries,
from which came the stone for Wells, has two recumbent
effigies of this mailed and surcoated type.

we show the long head and toga-like treatment of
the mantle, which make the character of the type.
The widely rippled folds are distinctly different
from the thickly set “ fillets,” “ rolls,” and “ ca-
vettos ” (those in fact of the Early English arch¬
mould), by the skilful treatment of which the
characteristic Wells drapery is rendered. But
while this “Orator” type has a suggestion of
likeness to certain contemporary statues at
Chartres, the handling is really distinct, and,
indeed, the figures in the reliefs closely show the
same hand.

Type E. — Certainly very close to types C and D
(see Fig. 117) are the sitting figures, which are
on the outside faces of the north buttresses. Not
so, however, those on the west buttresses. There
the sitting figures which are on the front faces of
the buttresses on both second and third tiers
seem to match with one another on either side of
the mid-line of the Front. They would seem
a distinct group by themselves, with a meaning
apart from that of the standing figures, for on
the south wing of the Front we find a “ king "
set among the “ bishops,” and vice versa, bishops
introduced upon the north side among the
“ kings ” and “ warriors.” All have the pecu¬
liarity of having the upper part of the body con¬
siderably longer than is in proportion to the
lower. But this was probably the same attempt
in all to give the right perspective from below.
We show (Figs. 123, 124) the two finest, but
there has been considerable reparation of them.

The sitting bishops to the south side on the
second tier are but little removed in the style of
their heads from the standing bishops of the
type A by their side, and in the kings on the
north side we find attitudes with arms somewhat
distortedly akimbo, and with a forward kink of
the neck which seems an evolution from the
manner of type C (see Fig. 117), where the drapery
is very much that of the “ notable ” at the side.
We conclude, therefore, that the sculptors of the
standing figures were set also to carve the sitting
statues, though a distinct hand may have dealt
with the two we show and the others of the
central group. The “bishop” of our illustration
is on the second tier just to the south of the
central window; the “king” is above it in the
third tier, and both have a vigorous treatment
with rather coarsely rendered draperies and deep-
cut features.

Type F. — Passing to the standing buttress
figures on the third tier, we find them generally
presenting fresh types of treatment. The figures
• are usually of great height running often to ten
times or more the head-height, for the heads are
not large. The draperies are more thickly rippled
than in the lower statues, the folds becoming a

208

English Mediceval Figure-Sculpture

WELLS CATHEDRAL. STATUES ON THE WEST FRONT.

English Mediaeval Figure-Sculpture,

209

WELLS CATHEDRAL. STATUES ON THE WEST FRONT.

2 10

English Medieval Figure-Sculpture.

K1G. 134. — WELLS STATUES. TYPE“j.” FIG. I 33. — WELLS STATUES. TYPE “ H.” FIG. 05- — WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.

STATUE IN FERETORY.

English Mediceval Figu re- Sett Iptu re .

2 1 1

succession of filleted edges. There are., however,
a few exceptions in these matters, for example
the warrior in Fig. 120; some of the ecclesiastics
too on the south side may be taken as transitional,
since they differ but little from those below ; and
mixed with them are certain broad-gowned figures
with full sleeves, which are of the type of the
sitting bishops by their side. But the majority,
whether “ bishops,” “ warriors,” or “ ladies,” have
their peculiar style ; the most striking being long
female figures with rippled draperies curling round
the feet. We give one from the east side of
north-west tower (Fig. 125) near which are mailed
figures of this type. As to date it is possible
that many of these tall, thin figures, cut out of
coffin-shaped slabs, were worked along with the
earlier bishops of the south-side buttresses, for
they are quite as decidedly of slab pattern. But
they pass on into others of less exaggerated pro¬
portions, and of considerable variety and grace
of treatment. There are bishops on the third
tier (see Figs. 116, 120) which may rank with the
female figures of the lowest tier on the east side
of north-west buttress* (Fig. 126). The small
heads and rippled hair, and the finely-folded
draperies distinguish the type sufficiently from
A, B, C, and I), while its general immaturity
separates it from the styles which follow. We
give in Fig. 122 ( d ) the general head-types of
these “ladies” and “queens.”

Type G. — Very close on these latest examples
of queens came the style which we take as that of
the finest sculpture in Wells, which reaches in
some respects the highest quality found in the
English figure-sculpture. This type occurs gene¬
rally on the wall-spaces between the buttresses,
where, as we have remarked, the groupings seem
independent of the schemes on the buttresses
themselves, showing that the bay-statues may
have been worked at a distinct interval after the
buttress-statues. In illustration of this class we
give a “ doctor ” from the bay of the south-west
tower (Fig. 127), a “ notable ” (the figure called
“Duns Scotus” which has, unfortunately, lately
fallen from its place, and though replaced is much
damaged) at the angle between the north-west
buttress (Fig. 128), a “Queen” from the north
face of north-west tower (Fig. 129), and as of
slightly different character “ St. Louis ” (Fig. 130)
and “St. Eustace” (Fig. 131), which are on the
east panel of the same tower. The head-types of
this class can be seen also in b and e (Fig. 122),
which are of the latest type F, and have been
photographed from the figures on the east side of
angle buttress. The deeply-cut, severe features of
the earlier types have here given place to mystical,

* The outermost of the four ladies is of the later type G

absorbed expressions, the brows are highly arched,
the foreheads smooth, with the eyeballs scarcely
sunk below them. The lower eyelids are taken
straight across the eyeballs, and the draperies
have an extraordinary suggestion of tenuity.

Type H. — Another class from the hand of a
different sculptor is to be seen in the six or seven
“ deacon ” figures, which are grouped in the first
tier of the east buttresses of north-west tower. We
give two illustrations (Figs. 132, 133) of this type,
which is distinguished by a strong head-treatment
(/ in Fig. 122), with a breadth of feature and a
treatment of crisp curls, which has a likeness to
the heads of the Salisbury Screen. The figures
here are broad and powerful, and the typical
treatment of the Wells drapery shows its strong
individuality.

The above classification which we have at¬
tempted is one only of certain marked distinctions
and is necessarily very summary, dealing as it
does with some 130 statues, whose sculptors may
have been twenty or more in number. Its eight
categories are not exhaustive of the different
manners which can be seen at Wells either side
by side or in succession to one another. Indeed,
examination of the statues close at hand from the
scaffold gives one the impression of their being
generally in pairs. We find continually two
figures with tricks of style which seem to mark
them as coming from one hand, and which separ¬
ate them from the next pair, and then again
another three or four slightly different. And on
the other hand we find a mingling of characters
in some figures which allies them with one or two
groups as if pointing to a succession of cross¬
influences. There are gradations between types
as distant as the short, large-headed “bishop”
in the thick-folded chasuble (Fig. 118), and the
long, small-headed “lady,” with trailing mantle
(Fig. 125), and in other examples both seem
merging into the style of the long-headed “ora¬
tor ” in the toga (Fig. 121), or into that of the
round-headed “ deacon ” in the dalmatic (Fig.
T33). This is all evidence of a body of sculptors
starting on the ground-work of effigy practice, and
at first carving statues as they had the coffin-lids
of bishops, knights, and ladies, each no doubt
with a way of his own ; but as they worked side
by side on the Wells statues influencing one
another, till they achieved a common style in the
latest well-proportioned figures, which are slab
effigies no longer, but statues in the round.

Looking at them broadly, therefore, on this
supposition, we may take the standing “ bishops ”
and “kings” of the second tier, and some of the
long third-tier figures, which are most slab-like
and elementary, as executed close upon the build¬
ing of the Front 1220-1225. And we may take as

2 I 2

Correspondence.

the latest the statues which to some extent leave
the elementary positions and bow the head and
turn it sideways, or advance the foot or hand into
the expression of movement.

Type J. — The most marked showing of later style
is in the short figures on either side of the central
window, a “king” and a “queen” (Fig. 134),
whose treatment seems a fresh conception, but
with a certain triviality of expression compared
with the earlier work. These two stand on the
flat foot in the manner of an image rather than in
that of an effigy, and the “ king's” head is turned
sideways, while the “queen” seems slightly to
bend the right leg. Their dresses also are shorter
and the folds very finely rendered as if of the
thinnest lawn. We may suspect, therefore, the
Doulting sculptor at the finish of the West Front

had become an imager, and would supply free
standing statues to order.

And at Winchester we have very possibly one
of his wares. We give an illustration (Fig. 135)
of a figure (now in the Feretory) which was dug
up in the Dean’s garden. It appears to be of
Doulting stone, and the draperies have the lawny
rendering of the later Wells statues. The subject
was possibly the representation of the Jewish
Church — the emblematic broken staff being of
metal like the girdle. I here is, however, a cer¬
tain freedom of attitude and a sweep of drapery
which is different from the Wells ideal, and in
this respect a likeness to the Chartres statues
must be admitted. But the handling of the folds,
and a spray of stiff-leaf foliage, that is found at the
feet proclaim the work English.

Edward S. Prior.

Arthur Gardner.

Correspondence.

THE VILLA MADAM A AND THE “VIGNA.”

In his very interesting account of Giulio
Romano at Mantua, Mr. Ricardo refers to the Villa
Madama as “ the Vigna,” no doubt on the authority
of Vasari, who wrote of it “ che allora si chiamo la vigna
di Medici, e hoggi di Madama.” The more famous
Vigna, however, is the Vigna of Pope Julius IIP, the
villa that lies to the right of the Via di Ponte Molle,
outside the Porta del Popolo. This was designed by
Vignola, and contains the wonderful little sunk foun¬
tain court, which Vasari claimed for himself and
Ammanati, and which is, perhaps, one of the most
charming caprices in the whole of Italian Renaissance
architecture. Sixtus V. also had a “ Palazzo della
Vigna” in Rome, at the foot of the hill of Santa
Maria Maggiore (Rione di Monti). A plan and eleva¬
tion of this is given in Fontana’s “ Della Trasporta-
tione deU’ obelisco Vaticano,” etc., Rome, 1590, and
a view of it is given in the “ Roma anticae moderna,”
(1660), p. 794. Michael Angelo designed the gate¬
ways for a “ Vigna ” of the Patriarch Antonio Gri-
mano in the Strada Pia at Rome, and another for the
“ Vigna ” of the Cardinal di Sermoneta in the same
street. The term appears to have been common for
a half-town, half-country residence; but “the Vigna,”
par excellence is, I think, the “ Vigna di Papa Giulio,”
and it is somewhat confusing to use the term in con¬
nection with the Villa Madama, especially as the name
was no longer applied to that house when Vasari
wrote.

Reginald Blomi-ield.

NEWS FROM ANJOU.

The Abbey Church of Fontevrault is under¬
going restoration. This is news which will come
home, not only to students of architecture, but to
everyone who cares for the connection of particular
localities with English history.

As the famous monastery has already been described
in this Review (June 1902) only one or two points
about it need be re-called here. Its church, the
whole of which dates from the twelfth century, was a
favourite burial place of the Plantagenets, and con¬
tains the recumbent effigies of Henry II. and his
Queen, of Richard I., and of the Queen of John.
The choir is an imposing specimen of Romanesque ;
the nave affords one of the most striking examples of
Oriental influence in France, and the whole building,
from its relation on the one hand to the pure Byzantine
of Perigueux, and on the other to the Byzantine-
Gothic of Angers, has a peculiar place in the history
of French architecture. The Abbey was dissolved
at the Revolution, and in 1804 it was converted into
a prison, which purpose it still serves.

Both during and after the Revolution the church
suffered much damage, but the inauguration of the
prison, especially, led to a series of acts of almost
incredible vandalism. The nave was walled off from
the transept and divided up into three, if not four,
storeys, forming a refectory, stores, or workshops
below, and cells or dormitories above. Windows
were inserted to light the lowest storey. Higher
up, original windows were arched across at half

213

Corresponden ce.

their height, and had their sills cut down ; higher
still, the cupolas of the four domes that formed the
internal roof were removed, and the external roof was
pierced by numerous chimneys and two tiers of sky¬
lights.* The choir fared better, being retained as
the prison chapel, but the high altar was placed at
the west end, the transepts and apse were filled with
benches, and the royal effigies, which had been twice
removed from the church, were placed with their feet
toward the west in the chapel of the south transept.!

In 1866 the restoration of the effigies to their
original position, and of the nave to its original pur¬
pose, was requested by Queen Victoria. But it was
only within the last two years, apparently, that the
first practical step towards a restoration of the Abbey
was taken, by the opening of negotiations between the
Administration des Beaux Arts and the Ministry of the
Interior (to which department prisons are subordinate).

On February 9th in the present year the Societe
d' Agriculture, Sciences et Arts d' Angers, which had already
twice intervened on behalf of the artistic interests of
Fontevrault, had its attention drawn by the Chevalier
Joseph Joubert to some remarks on the state of the
church and effigies in the Nineteenth Century of August,
1902 ; and, on his proposal, the Societe unanimously
recorded its wish that the competent authorities
should cause the interior of the nave to be cleared and
thrown open to the choir. Copies of this resolution
were forwarded to the two public departments above
mentioned.

On July 13th the local press announced that orders
had just been sent to the Director of the prison for
the immediate evacuation of the stores, dormitories,
etc., installed in the church ; that the opening-out of
the interior was to be begun immediately by the
Administration des Beaux Arts ; that 12,800 francs (a
scanty allowance, surely) had been placed at the
Prefect’s disposal to meet the accepted estimate, and
that, by an exceptional arrangement, the authorities
of the Beaux Arts had assumed entire responsibility
for the money.

Early in October the local press further announced
that the work was already progressing rapidly, and
that the nave had actually been cleared of its floorings
and partitions. It was also stated that some sort of
clearance had been effected in the remarkable octa¬
gonal twelfth-century kitchen, but that funds were

* See illustration, Architectural Review, June, 1902,
p. 222.

f Space forbids to enlarge upon the disappearance of the
grille, reredos, stalls, tombs, glass, etc.

+ This is not the place to speak of all the attention devoted to
the condition of the church and its effigies by various writers
and public men at various times, or of all the State negotiations
to which the effigies have given rise. The strange history of
these figures is very fully and interestingly given by M. Joseph
Joubert in a brochure entitled "LesRois Angevins a Fontevrault,”
reprinted from the Revue de V Anjou (Germain and G. Grassin,
Angers. 1903).

exhausted ; and the suggestion was added that ex¬
penses might be reduced by using the labour of the
prisoners.

Those who mistrust the methods of the Depart¬
ment which in France presides over historic monu¬
ments, will not regret that its efforts have thus been
checked. It is indeed to be hoped that at Fontevrault
it will be more guided by the spirit of restraint and
reverence than it usually is. That further work is
contemplated both upon the kitchen and upon the
church is implied in the Press account just quoted.
If the restoration of the nave to something like its
original shell is a legitimate aim, the modern
windows should be blocked and the old windows
restored to their proper shape ; and the vault, instead
of displaying four round gaps with the timbers of the
external roof showing through, should be completed
by the replacement of the cupolas. Fortunately the
rich capitals are not much injured ; but some work
may, perhaps, be spent upon the beautiful wall-arcad-
ing, which has suffered considerably. Of far greater
moment is the removal of the wall between nave and
choir, a reform which should lead naturally to altera¬
tions in that curious “prison chapel’’ arrangement
which filled both choir and transepts with wor¬
shippers, and placed the altar at the crossing, because
thence alone could it be properly seen from all points.
If the whole congregation were accommodated in the
restored nave, the choir could be cleared of benches,
the altar could be replaced in the apse, and, lastly,
the Plantagenet effigies might perhaps be translated,
not indeed to Westminister Abbey — for cultivated
opinion in England utterly renounces that oft-mooted
proposal — but to a more honourable situation in their
own church.* It would be interesting to know exactly
how much of this programme has been carried out up>
to the present date (November 20), t and how much
of it enters into the Government scheme at all. X If
it were carried out in its entirety, then, indeed, would
Queen Victoria’s wish be realised, and the French
nation would have performed a graceful act towards
that friendly neighbouring people over whom a
descendant of the Plantagenets still presides.

Cecil Hallett.

* Their exact original position cannot now be determined,
but it seems to have been somewhere at the west end of the
choir. M. Andre Hallays speaks of a tradition that they lay
with their feet toward the west when first placed in the church
( Debate , October 23, 1903). At that time they were probably,
as now, very little elevated above the pavement.

f Even the wall between nave and choir seems to have
been standing as lately as October.

+ The programme might be extended. Several stray belong¬
ings of the Abbey are said to be still recoverable — some pictures
(in the museums and churches of Anjou), a high altar (in the
parish church of Fontevrault), and an eighteenth-century choir
grille (in the court of the Prefecture at Angers). Then, too, the
Abbey precinct contains, besides the church and kitchen,
various other interesting buildings which, like them, have been
degraded to prison uses, or have otherwise suffered.

VOL. XIV.— S

Books

Papers of the British school at

ROME.

“ Papers of the British School at Rome,” Vol. I. London:
Macmillan & Co., St. Martin’s Street, Leicester Square.

The issue of the first volume of Papers by the
British School, which was opened in the spring of last
year, is a matter of considerable interest to all students
of archaeology. It might be thought that the diligent
and almost uninterrupted researches in Rome and the
suburbs by so many antiquaries of established repute
during the last thirty years would have left a too
narrow field for the operations of a newly-formed band
of workers. But this is far from being the case. The
spade of the explorer, and the trained mind of the
student, will be needed for many a generation to come,
before the remains of an old-world city and the soil of
the Campagna have said the last unspoken word
about Republican and Imperial Rome. No better
testimony to the incompleteness of our knowledge on
many points bearing directly upon Roman history
can be advanced than the two Papers in the present
volume. Although neither of them is strictly of an
architectural character, yet they relate to matters
with which every student of architecture should be
familiar.

The Director of the School is fortunate in having so
interesting a subject for analysis as the remains of the
church of S. Maria Antiqua, brought to light just two
years ago. Of this early Christian edifice at the foot
of the Palatine hill we have no record till the time of
John VII. (705-707), but there is little doubt it was
in existence as a church in the previous century. Its
title to Antiqua has been the subject of much contro¬
versy, and its claims to priority as a building dedicated
to the Virgin Mary are not based on any authentic
record. “ None of the 500 volumes on the topography
of ancient Rome,” says Signor Lanciani (“ Pagan and
Christian Rome ”), “ speak of this church, built side
by side with the Temple of Vesta, the two worships
dwelling together, as it were, for nearly a century;”
nor does any classic author give a clue to the origin
of a building, which had undoubtedly been erected
and used for secular purposes for many generations.
A glance at the plan (p. 18) is our only guide, and
here we have all the essential features of a Roman
house with its vestibulnm leading to an atrium, and the
tallimm beyond, with smaller chambers on either side.
As the dimensions of the rooms are large, and beyond
the scale of an ordinary Roman house, Mr. Rushforth
reasonably assumes that the whole served as a State
entrance to the Palatine, brought down to the level of
the Forum. The conversion took place in the follow¬
ing manner : The great entrance hall of the secular
building was converted into a navtliex ; the tablinum,
with the addition of an apse, became the sanctuary ;
and an enclosed choir, after the manner of S. Clemente,

was constructed in the centre of the atrium. There is
nothing to indicate that this space was ever roofed
over, although some kind of covering would appear to
be necessary as a protection to the painted decorations
which covered the walls.

Although John VII. may have been the first to
decorate the interior of S. Maria Antiqua in a syste¬
matic manner at the beginning of the eighth century,
the remains show that the sanctuary at least had not
been left bare before his time. Pope John’s excellent
work in the embellishment of churches was not re¬
stricted to any one particular edifice, for we find his
name also associated with pictorial mosaic in the
ancient church of St. Peter. This beautiful example,
which forms the subject of an illustration by Ciampini
(“Vet. Mon.” Vol. III., tav. 24), was removed to the
Basilica of S. Maria in Cosmedin in 1639. An outline
drawing is also given by D’Agincourt (“ Histoire de
l’Art,” pi. XVII.). At a later period, and down to
the time of Leo III. (795-816), the decorative work
continued, and came to a close when this favoured
little church was crushed and buried by the fall of the
Imperial buildings, which overhung it on the north¬
western edge of the Palatine. Whether the collapse
was due to an earthquake, which shook the city in the
same year, is uncertain ; but such was the condition
of the edifice, that the fittings were removed to a new
building on the Via Sacra, and S. Maria Antiqua
began a new career under its new title of S. Maria
Nova, better known by its modern name of S. Fran¬
cesca Romana. But the pictures on the walls were
immovable, and now, after a lapse of more than eleven
centuries, they have once again been brought to light,
damaged and fragmentary in many parts, but un¬
touched and unrestored, sufficient to show how a
Christian church in Rome was decorated in the eighth
century.

The rise and spread of Byzantine art in its western
progress is too large a subject to enter upon in a short
review, but they are adequately summarised by the
author on pp. n and 12. Nor is it possible to follow
Mr. Rushforth in his analytical commentary upon the
series of pictures which decorate the walls of the
church as well as of a subsidiary building designated
as the chapel of the Forty martyrs. When the official
account of the excavations is published by the Italian
authorities, reproductions of the pictures, either by
photography or other methods, can be studied in
conjunction with the author’s clear and descriptive
notes.

Nothing contributed in a greater degree to the
revival of art in Rome, which had reached the ebb of
its misfortunes during the disastrous invasion of the
Lombards in the sixth century, nor to the spread of
pictorial decoration of Christian edifices, than the
independent authority exercised by the Popes towards
the middle of the eighth century, and their assumption

Books.

215

temporal power. Italy, the favoured land of Greek
artists, in the first two centuries of the Empire, was
now the home of men trained in the schools of Con¬
stantinople. This is observable from north to south,
whether in architecture, painting, or sculpture. Much
of their work was of inferior quality, calling forth the
lament of a chronicler of the twelfth century that “ for
more than 500 years the genius of art had fled from
the land ; ” and at the second Council of Nice (787 )
the fathers were bold enough to assert that “ the artists
of the time invented nothing. They followed old tra¬
ditions. It was the hand only that executed”
(“ L’Art Byzantin dans l’ltalie Meridionale,” C.
Diehl, 1894). The mural paintings of S. Maria
Antiqua belong to a time when symbolism was fully
established as a powerful instrument in the cause of
Christianity. Some of the figures are described as
having unmistakable affinity with Roman art of classic
times, not only in type and treatment, but in method
and technique — observable also in the mosaic compo¬
sitions of SS. Cosmo and Damian, where Byzantine
influence is scarcely noticeable. But, strange to say,
at S. Lorenzo outside the walls, which was restored at
the close of the sixth century, the influence of eastern
art is apparent. Whether the mural paintings in
S. Maria Antiqua were the work of native Romans or
of Greeks from Constantinople, who had made a new
home in the western metropolis, is not of much
account. The art is Byzantine, for that was the art
of the age ; but, as Mr. Rushforth observes, it is local,
and the work of local artists, whether Roman or
Greek..

There is apparently nothing in common, except on
points of chronology, between the old church of
S. Maria buried under the Palatine hill and the topo¬
graphy of the great tract of country known as the
Roman Campagna. But one naturally reverts to this
particular period when Christianity, triumphant over
Paganism, was imparting new life to pictorial art
within the walls of Rome, while without, once the
garden of Latium, was nothing but desolation, neglect,
or abandonment. The interest attached to the Cam¬
pagna during its long eventful history is heightened
by a study of the conscientious labours of Mr. T.
Ashby, Junior, as recorded in this volume. So far-
reaching a subject as the Classical Topography of the
whole range of country known by that name is beyond
the scope of a single essay. It is, therefore, gratifying
to note that the investigation is being continued, and
will result in a series of Papers dealing with other
districts. The object of the present Paper is to deter¬
mine the course of three of the main roads (with their
branches) which traversed the district under considera¬
tion, and to describe the ancient remains which exist
near each road. They are the Viae Collatina, Praenes-
tina, and Labicana. The first went to Tibur by way
of Collatia ; the second to Praeneste by way of Gabii,
a distance of about 23 miles ; and the third to Labici,
afterwards extended to Ad Bivium, now known as
S. Ilario, distant from Rome about 30 miles. The
first two roads, vying in point of age with the Vise
Latina and Salaria, date from a very remote period ;

and although the latter was at first only a local road
to Gabii, and known as the Via Gabina, it assumed
an importance when it was extended to so fashionable
a quarter as Praeneste. But the last, which was pro¬
bably at one time the highway to Tusculum, became
renowned when it was continued to Labici, being
more convenient in point of gradients than the Via
Latina, which traversed the same district, and in
distance about the same. That the Labicana took
higher rank in the later days of the Empire than the
Latina is indicated in the “ Itinerary ” of Antonine,
which speaks of the latter falling into the Labicana.

The Via Collatina is not mentioned by any classic
author except Frontinus, who states that three miles
from the city accessible by this road are the springs of
Aqua Virgo. This is corroborated by Pliny (“ H. N.”
XXI. 42). The road paving has disappeared, but
fragments of marble and carved capitals indicate the
existence at one time of sumptuous villas fringing the
highway. Perhaps the most important architectural
remains are those of a palatial residence unearthed at
the Tenuta Benzone in 1883, about nine miles from
Rome, and described by Sr. Lanciani (“Not. Scav.”
1883, 169). The principal apartment, measuring
about 72 feet by 33 feet, with a spacious apse, was of
basilica form, not uncommon in country houses of this
character near Rome. According to Vitruvius (vi. 8),
they may be found attached to the palaces of
Roman nobility who held magisterial offices, and were
used for council meetings and as courts of tribunal.
Those attached to the Villa Gordianorum, on the Via
Praenestina, are another noted example. We know
little of Collatia as a city, except that it was well
adapted for defence. Livy (i. 38) informs us that it
was taken from the Sabines, and Pliny classes it
among the lost cities of Latium. Its ancient citadel
is now replaced by the neighbouring mediaeval castle
of Lunghezza, the walls being constructed with the
stones of old Collatia. It is worthy of passing men¬
tion that in this city took place that tragic incident
in connection with the ill-fated and virtuous Lucretia,
and which ultimately sealed the destiny of the last of
the kings of ancient Rome.

The Via Praenestina and the Via Labicana both
issued from the Porta Esquilina in the Servian Wall,
and branched off at the Porta Maggiore, or rather
from the double Arch of the Aqua Claudia and the
Anio Novus, which was incorporated into the Wall of
Aurelian and converted into a city gate. Among
other remains near the Via Praenestina none have
attracted more attention than those of the Villa
Gordianorum, now known as the Tor de’ Schiavi.
These have been too often described to need repetition
here. For illustrations, see the drawings of Pirro
Ligorio in the Bodleian Library (fol. 30) and Piranesi
(“Ant. Rom. II.” tav. 29). Canina also, touched
by the romantic incidents associated with the
memorable rule of the ill-fated Gordians, has given
play to his imagination in his restoration of this lordly
dwelling. (“ Edifizi VI.” tav. 106, 107). The wealth
of marble in its construction and its architectural
magnificence are referred to by Capitolinus (“ Vita

Books .

2 I 6

Gordiani III.,” c. 32). A large number of tombs and
numerous columbaria in the neighbourhood attest the
existence at one time of a large population. On this
subject it has been observed by Lanciani (“ Not.
Scav.” 1890, 1 18) that some of these columbaria, which
belong to the first and second centuries, are partly
constructed with materials of Republican times, show¬
ing that the Romans under the Empire had little
respect for their ancestors. Further on the road and
near the twelfth milestone from Rome we reach the
site of the ancient Gabii, memorable in history as the
last fortified town in Latium to resist the Roman
arms. But it fell at last by an act of treachery. A
special chapter is given by Mr. Ashby on this interest¬
ing old-world city, as well as the later one which was
built on an adjacent site in the early days of the
Empire. Systematic excavations were made by Gavin
Hamilton in 1792, and its treasures in marble and
stone are described by Visconti. (“Monumenta Gabini
della Villa Pinciani,” 1797). As a Roman town and
place of resort in the first and second centuries it
enjoyed some notoriety from its baths and, as alleged
by some, from its spacious lake of spring water.
Respecting the antiquity of this lake there is consider¬
able controversy, but there is little doubt that the
basin which is now dry, is an extinct crater, one of
many in this volcanic region. It is not mentioned by
any classic author, and is first alluded to in the Acts
of St. Primitivus. Recent investigations tend to show
that the lake never existed till the Middle Ages, and
that it arose from neglect of the anissarium which
became choked, and thus checked the natural flow
which had contributed in the early days of the
Republic to the splendid vegetation covering the
plains below. When Gell visited the spot 70 years
ago he noted that “ the waters have been much
lowered by canals made for draining purposes.” Still
further drainage in recent times has caused the lake
to be dried up. Several other ancient towns near the
Via Praenestina have not been satisfactorily located,
nor identified with later towns, such as Corcolle,
Passerano and Zagarolo ; but further investigations
may solve the doubt, especially with regard to the
old city of Pedum, which enjoyed great prosperity till
it was captured by L. Furius Camillus, b.c. 339. The
fact of Julius Caesar having a villa there, and Tiberius
an estate, are sufficient evidence of a degree of
notoriety in the closing days of the Republic. Zagarolo
possesses considerable interest on account of the
remains of an amphitheatre in its vicinity, which
attracted the attention of Palladio on the score of some
architectural merit. A drawing by his own hand may
be seen in the Library of the R.I.B.A. (“ Burlington-
Devonshire Coll.,” portfolio viii. fol. 15). The 26 tiers
of seats attest a large residental population in
imperial times. The date of the structure is unknown,
but, like many other provincial amphitheatres, it may
have been erected in the reign of the Gordians, in
preparation for the festivities that were to mark the
approaching 1,000th anniversary of the foundation of
Rome. Maffei (“ A Compleat History of Ancient
Amphitheatres,” Verona, 1730,) makes no mention of it,

and boldly asserts that the only two amphitheatres
outside Rome were at Verona and Capua, those at
Pola and Nismes being closed as theatres. But Maffei
was a native of Verona and therefore anxious to glorify
his own birthplace. Further interest is attached to
Zagarolo as the town where the Latin version of the
Bible, called the Vulgate, was produced.

The Via Labicana, as its name implies, ran origi¬
nally to Labici, and as it traversed the same district
on the Via Latina, the two roads were under the
charge of one curator. Indeed there are many indica¬
tions, as Mr. Ashby points out, that there were at
least three points (besides others of little importance)
where these two highways met within a computated
length of 40 miles. North of the third milestone is the
reputed Mausoleum of St. Plelena, now known as the
Torre Pignattara. A drawing by Canina (“Arch, dei
Temp. Crist.,” 1846, tav. 96) indicates a circular build¬
ing with eight niches, alternately rectangular and
curved, and roofed with a cupola. Within its walls a
small church was erected by Clement XI., early in the
eighteenth century, dedicated to SS. Peter and Mar-
cellinus ; and in the immediate neighbourhood may
still be seen the deserted cemetery of that distinguished
Imperial band, the equites singular es, whose duties were
somewhat equivalent to those now performed by Royal
messengers. They were picked cavalry attached to
the Emperor’s bodyguard and their barracks were on
Mt. Caelius. The following inscription is of interest,.
“ D. M. T. Ael. Martiali, Architecto, eq. sing. Aug.
Tur. Gracilio (C.I.L. VI. 3182). A mile further on
the road may be seen the apse of a church identified
with that of the suburban see of Sub Augusta or
Augusta Helena, the bishops of which are recorded
in the latter half of the fifth century. It has been
suggested, and with good reason, that the church was
built on the site of a villa belonging to the Empress-
Helena. The site of Labici is still doubtful, and
its name appears as late as the twelfth century, a
bishoprick having been established there. Cicero refers
to it together with Gabii and Bovillae, and Strabo
speaks of the town as in a ruined condition. The
claims of Monte Compatri as the site of Labici, its
distance from Rome, and its position in reference to-
ancient roads mentioned in “ Itineraries” are thoroughly
worked out by Mr. Ashby, but it must be admitted
that the modern village bearing that name contains,
scant traces of antiquity. It is difficult to follow the
exact course of the Via Labicana, but careful investi¬
gations clearly show the importance of this road with
its numerous branch roads, competing in many parts
with the Via Praenestina as a fashionable highway
to the lordly villas of wealthy Romans, referred to by
Strabo as “ Villas in quibus more Persarum Regias
quasdam struunt.”

The eight elaborated maps at the end of the volume
are rather confusing, partly due to the comparative
smallness of scale, but principally to the necessity of
indicating every place of historic interest. Such maps
are better engraved, and on each sheet should be a.
scale of Roman and English miles.

Alexander Graham.

THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW.

Waring's, Ltd.

GEORGIAN HALL AND LOUNGE.

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Oxford Street, London, W.

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